


Cypresses

by thesmophorias (johnandsherlocks)



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 20:22:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 84,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16456601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnandsherlocks/pseuds/thesmophorias
Summary: A symbol of death. A symbol of life. Cypresses were a paradox within themselves. And so was Laurent. Damen is intent on solving the enigma of Laurent, and maybe, just maybe, save himself along the way.High school AU. Damen and Laurent are roommates.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is based on a painting by Vincent Van Gogh.
> 
> Warning: English is not my first language, so you may find some typos or grammatical mistakes, those are entirely my fault.
> 
> This fic will be updated weekly. Any feedback is appreciated :3 
> 
> Enjoy! x

The path towards the lockers was a labyrinth tainted with gray, where everything seemed the same and yet all had irreparably changed. Rows and rows and rows of the same, and thus he walked amongst people, amongst a thousand different faces but none he cared to recognize, none to distinguish. It all looked the same, and yet all had irreparably changed. A year before, he’d seen a thousand colors amidst the rows of lockers, a thousand different smells, he could hear music as he made his way through people, people he longed to meet, people that seemed like millions of different universes and galaxies and supernovas. Now it was all plain, boring, dull, gray. All the same, but irreparably changed. Life had lost its color, its music, even its own solar system and the other systems beyond that had gotten lost, covered by a layer of grey, absorbing, lightless gray. He used to see planets behind people’s eyes. Now he only saw black holes, threatening to swallow him whole, threatening to absorb the last bits of sunlight he was able to summon, the last bits of sunlight he had left to fight with.  
   
He never liked the first days at school, but this one in particular…sucked. August had been a long month for him, almost endless, one of those moments when he’d felt like time wouldn’t pass but at the same time life passed him by and he was unable to stop it. Summer had brought with it a cold, lonely winter. Plain, boring, dull, winter. Winter amidst the sunshine and the heat and the cloudless sky, winter amidst the joy, winter amidst the smiles and the sweat and the ease, winter against light.  
   
Damen would never admit it, but that day, his first day as a senior, his first day at school without Kastor and Jokaste, his first day in one of the most defining years of his life, he felt lonely. He stood still in the middle of the hallway, feeling the cold capturing him, claiming him under its claws, he saw the last leaf falling dead to the ground, he saw gray, not white, not like those pretty winters that seemed taken out of postcards made from galaxies far far away, but one of those days of winter when the sky was cloudy, when rain patterned against the windows and amidst the cold and the darkness life seemed slightly less unbearable. It had been like those dreadful days of winter for the past month. Gray. All the same, yet irreparably different.  
   
“Damen!”, a voice behind him said.  
   
He turned to find Nikandros, giving him a wide smile, one he tried to reciprocate, but couldn’t, he was certain he couldn’t.  
   
“Hey, Nik”, Damen replied.  
   
Nikandros frowned. “What’s wrong?”, he asked. He knew Damen so well, they’d been friends since they were four years old and this was the longest he’d been without talking to him, but he hadn’t felt like talking to anybody during the Summer, and lest of all Nik, because he was able to look through Damen’s walls.  
   
Damen shook his head. “Nothing, it’s just- it’s been a long summer”, he said with a sigh.  
   
“Is everything alright?”, Nik asked him.  
   
Damen couldn’t reply, so he just shook his head again.  
   
Nikandros sighed, placing his arm around Damen’s shoulders playfully. “Relax. It’ll be a good year, our last year in here. We have to make it amazing. Plus, you’ve got a single now asshole, you have no right at all to complain”.  
   
Oh. Damen had forgotten about that. Actually, he’d just left his bags on the room and closed it immediately, not wanting to face the unpacking process yet. He used to share rooms with Kastor, but now he’d graduated -and even if he hadn’t, Damen would have requested another room-, Damen had the room all for himself. Which was good, of course, great, except for the fact he felt lonely and so goddamned angry towards his brother and towards Jokaste and he felt like punching a wall. He shook his head and ruffled his hair. “Right, a single”, Damen attempted to smile.  
   
“Someone is missing Jokaste, isn’t he?”, Nik asked, not knowing that he’d hit a nerve. “Stop goading, you’ll see her next weekend”.  
   
Damen shook his head. “Don’t think I will”, and he smiled, a smile that looked like anything but a smile. It was filled with rage and with pain and Nik couldn’t help but frown.  
   
“Why?, what happened?”, Nik asked, warily.  
   
“We- broke up”, Damen whispered.  
   
“What?, why?”  
   
Damen looked down, his nostrils flared. He tried to keep himself under control. He struggled with it. “Because…she cheated on me”, he whispered.  
   
“WHAT?”, Nik asked in surprise.  
   
“…with Kastor”.  
   
“WHAT THE FUCK?”, Nik told him, unable to lower his voice, everyone around the hallway turned to look at them. Damen rolled his eyes and fixed his attention back on the locker, giving Nik some time to process the story.  
   
After a long silence, Nik spoke up first.  
   
“Was that why you didn’t text me over the Summer?”  
   
Damen shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. It was an ugly summer”.  
   
Nik slapped him on the arm.  
   
“Ouch!, what the hell is wrong with you?”, Damen asked him, holding his arm and grimacing.  
   
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”  
   
“Too busy loathing myself”.  
   
Nik rolled his eyes. “That’s it. This Friday we’re going to inaugurate the school year and we won't finish until you're drunk out of your mind. It’s the least I can do”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “I’m not sure that will work”.  
   
“I don’t give a fuck. We’re going. Period”.  
   
Damen knew it was pointless to argue with Nik. “Fine”, he said with a sigh.  
   
The bell rang and they both looked up. “Shit”, Nik said, “what class do you have now?”, he asked.  
   
Damen fidgeted with his schedule for a moment before clearing this throat. “Um… Biology. You?”  
   
Nik shook his head. “English. See you at the break, then. And you have to tell me everything”, he pointed an accusatory finger at Damen. “No! I don’t give a fuck if you want to talk about it or not. You’re telling me”.  
   
Damen sighed. “Fine! I’ll see you at the break!”. Nik walked away and Damen took a deep breath, steeling himself for the day ahead.  
   
When he was a little kid, he looked forward to first days at school. He remembered his parents driving him and Kastor, leaving them with a big kiss and Damen grabbing his brother’s hand excitedly as they walked in, the world suddenly seeming far too big, unreachable, infinite, just like the school, and he looked around, amused, feeling like just a tiny dot amidst a universe of possibilities. And every first day was just the same: the possibilities were endless, and he was ready to eat the world raw. And the next day he had forgotten about it and fallen into routine again, but those first minutes in which he put a step on the school again, when he walked into their bedroom again, when everything seemed so familiar and yet so new and exciting, those minutes were fascinating.  
   
Now his parents were gone, Kastor had graduated and moved in with his ex-girlfriend and Damen felt old and trapped in the middle of a world that apparently was comprising, because he now felt too big and the universe far too small. No possibilities, no excitement, nothing to look forward to, actually. It was truly depressing.  
   
Was this how growing up felt like? This feeling of somehow being trapped in between and unable to run away? To feel like life is sliding through your hands and you’re unable to get a grasp of it? Unable to stop the time? Would it be like this always? Would it only get worse as he grew older? That thought terrified him, so he shook his head and rushed to the first class, before he got all thoughtful and existential.  
   
******  
   
Biology bored him. It certainly was an interesting topic, but not one he was looking forward to pursuing again the future, so he couldn’t care less about the class, not at all.  
   
Their teacher -Mr. Guion- was a cranky old man that was far too familiar with all of them, for he’d taught them biology for the past couple of years, and he didn’t seem quite thrilled to see them again, so the general atmosphere of the place wasn’t all that nice, either.  
   
He started talking and introducing himself, as if no one knew who he was, and just as he was about to start explaining the class syllabus, a knock on the door stopped him. Damen hadn’t even noticed that Guion had stopped talking, he was far too immersed in his own thoughts. But when he heard a different voice, he did look up.  
   
The principal was there in their classroom, saying… something, something that Damen couldn’t understand, couldn’t even begin to comprehend, could barely even listen to, for all of his attention had been struck with a touch of gold.  
   
He blinked.  
   
And he was- speechless.  
   
“So I’ll leave you with professor Guion. Do enjoy your school year”.  
   
Guion nodded and the boy standing next to the principal walked towards him. His arms were crossed and he looked completely…detached of reality, as if he couldn’t care less about the school nor about the fact the attention of the whole class was focused on him. His eyes seemed just as bored as his stance made him look, but… but he was beautiful. His straight, long blond hair seemed to shine along with the sun and it felt like all the light in the room had been absorbed by him, as if he was the only source of light amidst such a dreary, dark place, and yet, his blue eyes reflected a kind of coldness that made him untouchable, impenetrable, unreachable. Winter against Summer.  
   
“Introduce yourself, young man”, Guion said. “What’s your name?”  
   
“Laurent deVere”, he replied.  
   
Guion nodded. “Welcome, Laurent, please grab a seat”.  
   
Laurent passed by Damen and sat a couple of seats away from him. Damen was still transfixed by his looks. He shook his head to get rid of the thoughts and tried as hard as he could to focus on the class.  
   
He barely managed to.  
   
As soon as the bell rang, Laurent stood up and left in a rush, and Damen stood there, in the middle of the classroom, staring like an idiot to the point where Laurent had been sitting just a couple of seconds ago.  
   
It used to happen to him that whenever he met someone for the first time, he’d usually forget about how they looked mere minutes after seeing them, and wouldn’t remember them just until he saw them again. He hated that, for images of people turned into a blurry and hazy memory in his mind, as if they weren’t important, as if they were disposable, as if his brain wasn’t ready yet to allow them into his mind.  
   
He didn’t want that to be the case with Laurent.  
   
And so he spent the next couple of minutes desperately trying to imprint that image into his mind, to remember the way his stone cold eyes gave nothing away despite the fact his hair seemed to reflect the light of sun itself. He didn’t want to forget that image, he didn’t want to wait until he saw him again, he wanted to remember the way Laurent looked.  
   
He sighed and walked away from the classroom.  
   
*****  
   
The rest of the day went by in a haze. Damen’s mood hadn’t improved at all since the morning and he already felt the pull of the day. He felt exhausted, like life was proving to be too much. He met with Nikandros during the break and lunch and they went to grab dinner together, and Damen had to go through the whole story of how he found out about Jokaste and Kastor and how he found them together at his and Kastor’s house and about the ugly fight that had followed, first with Jokaste and then with his brother and how he’d had to spend the rest of the summer vacations around the house and having to face his stupid brother all the time and even sometimes, with his ex-girlfriend. The whole experience had been hell.  
   
Surprisingly, telling Nik proved to give him some kind of relief. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to talk about it, to tell someone about it, to let anyone know how he was feeling, how much he needed someone to tell him that his brother and his then girlfriend had fucked up and that they were a couple of assholes, and Nik told him all of that, had made him feel like maybe it wasn’t his fault at all, with the added bonus of promising to kick their asses if he ever saw their faces again, the mere idea bringing a smile to Damen’s face, a smile he hadn’t had in god knew how long.  
   
It had truly been a long summer, and just now, when Damen was finally able to not feel disgusted of himself, now that he was able to remember her and not feel his heart shattering into a million pieces, now that he didn’t feel the ache of the absence of his brother, now that all that pain was slowly being replaced by anger, and by oblivion, now Damen felt that isolation had taken a toll on him. Pallas and Erasmus joined them a while later and shared their funny stories from their Summers and Damen felt that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be alone this time. Maybe, not being alone would be the only therapy to stop himself from going mad, or doing something mad.  
   
But by the end of the day he was absolutely exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally, and it was only Monday, and it was only the beginning of the school year and Damen was already done with all of it. He ached to get to his bed as soon as possible, so as soon as dinner finished he said goodbye to his friends and left for his room.  
   
Just as he was about to open the door, he remembered he hadn’t unpacked any of his stuff and he’d find all of his suitcases scattered around. He couldn’t help but groan loudly, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to find. After a moment, he opened the door.  
   
And he certainly wasn’t prepared for what he found in his bedroom.  
   
He stopped dead in his tracks. Blinking for a couple of seconds, he took some steps back and out of the room, checking if the inscription on his dorm actually said his name and he hadn’t taken the wrong room, but it was right.  
   
He walked inside but was unable to move. There was a touch of gold painting the light blue of the walls.  
   
What the hell was Laurent deVere doing in his bed?, and most of all, why the hell was Laurent deVere acting as if was completely normal for him to be laying -yes, laying- in Damen’s bed?  
   
“Um…hello?”, was all Damen could say.  
   
Laurent, who was looking fixedly at his phone, only looked up and met Damen’s eyes for a second, before fixing his attention back on his phone, without replying.  
   
Damen blinked, unable to shake the surprised expression from his face. “Erm- what are you doing here?”  
   
Laurent still didn’t look up. “This is my room”, was all he replied.  
   
“No, it isn’t”.  
   
“Yes, it is”, Laurent said.  
   
“No. This is my room”.  
   
Laurent sighed and put his phone down on the bed, before rolling his eyes and looking annoyed. “Did biology class burn the last neurons in your brain?”  
   
Damen was taken aback. “What?”  
   
“Yes. It’s the only valid reason to justify the fact you haven’t reached the conclusion that I will have to share the room with you. Don’t worry, though, didn’t expect much from a giant like you, anyway”.  
   
“Wha-”, and Damen blinked. So Laurent _had_ seen him in biology class and was able to recognize him right then, interesting. He shook his head, he had to focus. “But I was getting a single this year”.  
   
Laurent stood up from the bed. “But now you’re not”, he said calmly, before walking towards the bathroom.  
   
“Why?”  
   
“Surely you can get to the answer by yourself-”, Laurent replied, looking rather bored with the conversation they were holding, “-or you’re more disappointing than I imagined”.  
   
Damen stood still for a moment, following Laurent’s path with his eyes. Of course he could get to the reply by himself, all the other rooms were occupied and his was the only single left, but it still didn’t make sense, he was still far too shocked to actually form coherent phrases in his mind. “And you took my bed why- ?”, he asked after a moment.  
   
Laurent replied from the bathroom. “Didn’t know was yours. Just saw a bunch of garbage scattered around the room”.  
   
“Those are my bags!”, Damen replied, offended.  
   
“Yes, I figured”, Laurent said.  
   
Damen looked around, but saw none of his bags around. Laurent had already unpacked and his side -which was definitely not his side- was completely in order. “Where the hell did you put them?”, he asked, angrily.  
   
“In lost and found”, Laurent said, simply.  
   
Damen took deep breaths and tried to calm himself but he was far too angry at the moment. What the actual fuck? Who did this idiot think he was? With his perfect hair and his blue eyes? How dare he?  
   
He shook his head and put his hands into fists before walking out of the room, closing the door with as much force as he could.  
   
He walked into the campus and stood in the middle of the grass, needing the air the wind brought to fill his lungs and actually clear his brain because all he could think about at the moment was of murdering that idiot.  
   
Oh fuck. Lost and Found was already closed for the day. That fucking asshole. Damen wouldn’t get his stuff back until the next day, he didn’t have pjs nor clothes for the next day. Oh, he was definitely going to _murder_ him. He looked up and fixed his eyes on the stars, forcing his mind to calm down, otherwise things would get ugly once he returned and-  
   
The keys.  
   
The fucking keys to his bedroom.  
   
He groaned.  
   
He’d left them there. And this asshole would certainly lock him out.  
   
He walked into the rooms again and stood outside the door. He tried opening it, but it was locked. Damen was definitely going to kill him.  
   
He knocked once. Waited. No response.  
   
He knocked again. No response.  
   
Once more. No response.  
   
He was starting to get mad.  
   
He knocked louder. “Laurent!”  
   
No response.  
   
“Laurent! Open the door! God damnit! Are you going to leave me here all night?”  
   
No response.  
   
“What the fuck is your problem, asshole?”, Damen couldn’t help but shout through the door. “Did I actually do something to you?”  
   
No response.  
   
“Fuck you!”, he yelled, because he couldn’t not do it.  
   
He sighed and took out his phone.  
   
_Can I stay over?,_ he texted Nik.  
   
_????,_ was Nik’s response.  
   
_Long story. Please._  
  
_Sure, but I don’t know if Jord will like that._  
  
Damen couldn’t care less, he knocked on Nik’s room and Jord opened the door. He was Nik’s new roommate and even though they’d known each other for a very long time, nor Damen nor Nik were very good friends with him and Nik didn’t seem too excited to be sharing the room with him. “Hey Jord, listen, my new roommate, who is an asshole, locked me out, can I please stay over with you guys?”  
   
Jord frowned. “I-”  
   
Nik arrived to the door. “Hey man, you look like shit”, he said to Damen, before turning to Jord, “I promise he won’t be a bother”, he said with pleasing eyes.  
   
Jord considered it for a moment but then nodded and let Damen in.  
   
Damen sighed and sat on Nikandros’ bed, rubbing his temple, starting to feel the beginnings of a migraine.  
   
“What happened?”, Nik asked him, sitting next to him.  
   
“Apparently I have a roommate now”, Damen said with a sigh, sounding more exhausted than furious.  
   
“But you’d been given a single”, Nik said the obvious.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know that, Nik, but there was a new bed when I arrived from dinner”.  
   
“And my roommate sent all my bags to lost and found and locked me out of the room”.  
   
“He did _what?_ ” _,_ Nik asked, surprised.  
   
Damen nodded, “yeap”.  
   
“Who the fuck is your roommate? Satan?”  
   
“If it were Satan, it surely wouldn’t be this evil”, Damen replied.  
   
“No but seriously, who’s the asshole?”  
   
“This new guy, Laurent, I think it’s his name”, Damen said, aiming for nonchalance, but of course he remembered his name and he’d engraved that face into his mind but in the last half hour that face had been replaced by a feeling of utter…hatred, or something like that.  
   
“He sounds like an asshole”, Nik said.  
   
“He is, apparently”.  
   
“So what are you going to do now?”  
   
Damen shrugged. “Wait until tomorrow to claim my bags and…sleep naked for now, I guess”.  
   
Jord was just coming out of the bathroom and stood still, his eyes widening and his face contorted.  
   
Nik laughed. “Calm it, Jord, he won’t actually sleep naked. I can borrow you one of my pjs, but just for tonight though, you’d stretch all of my shirts, I can’t allow that to happen”.  
   
Damen hit Nik with a pillow, “I’m not that much bigger than you, asshole”, he said, offended.  
   
Jord rubbed the back of his head, “are you two… well, you know-”, he asked, awkwardly.  
   
Nik broke out in laughter. “Ha! He wishes! No, he’s not up to my level”, he replied.  
   
Damen kicked him on the shin. “Yeah, I’m not in _that_ level of stupidity!”  
   
Jord seemed relieved. “Alright. I’ll go to sleep. Damen, get some pjs and Nikandros, please don’t do anything… sexual with Damen tonight. Good night!”  
   
Nik grimaced, “you can rest assured, Jord”.  
   
Nik handed Damen a sleeping bag and some pjs and they didn’t talk for the rest of the night, Damen falling asleep from exertion faster than he expected to. The last thought in his mind, however, was that he was going to kill his roommate once he saw him again, how he’d found Laurent attractive earlier that day was way beyond him.


	2. Chapter 2

If someone had told Damen 24 hours ago that he would have to share not only Biology but also English class with Laurent, those would have been fantastic news. But of course, 24 hours later, finding Laurent at the classroom while wearing a shirt he'd borrowed from Nikandros and which certainly didn't fit, while sporting huge bags beneath his eyes from lack of sleep and feeling like he was about to murder someone, that was the worst thing that could possibly happen to him.  
   
No, strike that, the worst thing that could have possibly happened to him was his girlfriend cheating on him with his brother, so he supposed he was ready to face whatever shit fate wanted to throw to his face.  
   
He sighed. Needless to say, he’d had a terrible night and he felt very, _very_ grumpy at the moment. And seeing Laurent there, sitting regally, as if he was some kind of king, was getting on his nerves. As soon as he walked into the classroom, Laurent looked up and threw him the biggest, toothiest, fakest smile he could manage, and Damen rolled his eyes, suddenly very self-conscious, for he’d borrowed a t-shirt from Nikandros and it didn’t fit at all, he looked far too big in it, and very disproportionate.  
   
“Had a good night?”, Laurent asked him, feigning innocence.  
   
“Fuck you”, was all Damen could reply, feeling his heart beating faster, feeling a kind of anger he’d only experienced once before in his life, which was curious, thinking that what Laurent had done was not as absurdly terrible as what Kastor had done.  
   
Laurent’s smile only widened, as if he’d been able to read into his mind, to capture every single thought and make them his own. “No need to get so rude, brute”.  
   
“Why the fuck did you lock me out?”, Damen couldn’t help but ask.  
   
Laurent’s eyebrows raised. “I did no such thing!”, he said, aiming for innocence.  
   
“The hell you did, I think my knocking woke up the entire wing!”  
   
“You _knocked?_ I didn’t notice”, Laurent said, his voice soft and a mischievous smile on his face. “Nice t-shirt by the way, did you get it from lost and found?”  
   
Damen clenched his hands into fists.  
   
“Do it”, Laurent said, simply and plainly, the smile still on his lips. His voice taking an almost seductive tone.  
   
Damen _wanted_ to. He desperately wanted to. Laurent was giving him the perfect opportunity and for a second he felt blinded by the urging need to just kick something, to throw all his force at it, to express all his problems and his frustrations and his anger and put them in that one blow. He imagined the look of Laurent’s red skin, swollen. But he could almost see it as well: the little smile never vanishing, only getting wider, for he’d know he’d won that battle. Laurent was pushing his limits, Damen could see that, and then he realized he was in front of someone who was strikingly similar to a person he’d thoughtlessly fallen in love with, a person who had manipulated him and exploited his weakness. He had to thread carefully.  
   
He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, inwardly telling himself that he couldn’t punch him, at least not right there. He took a couple of shuddering breaths before moving to a seat as far as possible from Laurent, whose smile never left his face for as long as Damen could see him. It wasn’t a nice smile, not really, more like a cold and calculated one, as if he was still detached from the world and he was putting on an act.  
   
As soon as the class finished, Laurent walked towards Damen’s seat, Damen looked up and could only meet the enticing blue of those dead and cold eyes, which didn’t even flinch at the stare. Laurent put something over the desk and when he took away his hand, Damen realized it was the key to his room. “Thanks for lending me the key, but now I have my own. Looking forward to sharing room with you, brute”, Laurent said with a clear hint of sarcasm before leaving as fast as he could.  
   
Damen stared at his back, when he was out of sight, he finally left the room. He walked towards lost and found, claimed his bags while the assistant glared at him for being so careless, and took them towards his room. _His and Laurent’s,_ he reminded himself.  
   
The bedroom was clean and orderly in a way Damen had never seen before. He used to share rooms with Kastor, though, so it wasn’t a surprise that their room would be a mess, but Damen had never seen it so…pristine. Laurent had taken Damen’s bed and it looked as if he hadn’t even slept on it for how perfectly made it was. Damen, of course, had to get the bed the school brought in at the eleventh hour, which was an old, creaky wooden bed that they’d probably taken from an abandoned storage in the campus. He unpacked the bags as fast as he could, for history class would start soon, made his bed and hid his bags beneath the bed so he wouldn’t have to take the trip towards lost and found again.  
   
He took out a portrait of his family and placed it in a small night table next to his bed. He stared at it, transfixed. He’d forgotten he’d brought it along with him. At the moment, he wished he could take a Sharpie and cross Kastor out of the picture, but he couldn’t ruin the memory of such a perfect and happy moment.  
   
He was nine and his brother was 10. Their parents had taken them to the beach and they’d spent the whole afternoon building sand castles with Kastor and failing miserably at it, until his father arrived and sat next to them. With his help, they built a gigantic castle and they felt terribly proud of it. Their mother put the finishing touches and when it was ready they asked a stranger to take them a picture with the castle. Damen smiled widely as he felt Kastor’s hand around his shoulder, clapping him excitedly. Then the jealousy and the fights started, and then their parents died in that accident and all they had was each other.  
   
He stared at the picture for another while, wondering when had everything gone so fucking wrong with his life, and he felt a tear or two falling down his face, but he ignored them, he wanted to keep that moment forever, he needed a small reminder that life was better, that life could be better, as he tried to push away the feeling that maybe it would never be better than _that,_ and that this life was the one he deserved.  
   
He was swallowing down the lump in his throat when he heard the clatter of keys, followed by a door being opened. A second later, Laurent walked in, looking as pristine and perfect as the side of the room he walked towards. Damen quickly cleaned his face off tears and felt Laurent’s eyes as he did so, but none of them uttered a word. As Damen looked up, Laurent was rummaging through his desk, looking for a book. He placed the picture next to his bed and stood up, while Laurent searched distractedly through the desk, and without saying goodbye, -something highly unusual of him and a move he considered quite distasteful and rude, but that asshole deserved it-, Damen walked away from the room. As he closed the door, the last thing he felt were Laurent’s eyes on him once again.  
   
   
****  
   
Fortunately, Damen’s story about the night before, as told by Nikandros, kept the whole squad entertained throughout lunch, which meant Damen didn’t have to talk much, didn’t have to pay attention, and most of all, didn’t have to interact with them, because he was certain if he did, they’d found out about his sour mood.  
   
And truth was, he wasn’t feeling quite well at the moment. He’d tried putting it down, ignoring it, but the pain was nagging at him, demanding to be grieved. And Damen truly didn’t know how to deal with all of that.  
   
His mind was absent from all of his classes. Thankfully, it was only the second day of school, because otherwise he’d be anxious and nervous that he would fail his exams or something, thankfully, football season hadn’t started yet, and he didn’t have to worry about that either. So the day, pretty much like the day before, had gone by in a blur.  
   
He did have to worry about his new roommate, though. But he didn’t want to think about it for now. He hadn’t seen Laurent since the moment he walked into their bedroom and he felt… well it wasn’t as if specifically he _didn’t_ want to see him, there was still something incredibly attractive about him, but he was scared of what that asshole would do next for no apparent reason whatsoever.  
   
So when the hour came to go back to his room, Damen felt exhausted, and thinking about seeing Laurent didn’t thrill him (much). When he walked in, he realized Laurent hadn’t arrived yet and he threw himself over his creaky bed, ignoring the sound and sighing in relief instead.  
   
Laurent arrived a couple of minutes later and Damen was already under the covers by then. Laurent stopped dead on his tracks by the door, as if he wasn’t expecting to see Damen so soon. “Ah, and I was hoping you’d stay the night on the playground like the night before, well guess you can’t have it all in life”, Laurent said, not amused at all.  
   
Damen stared at him for a moment, for the soft glow emerging from the hallway created the perfect amount of light and shadow, and Laurent presented himself like some kind of painting from the renaissance, or from the neoclassicism, giving him almost a god-like aura, as if he belonged to the Louvre rather than that dreary and boring high school. Damen blinked. Where the hell had all of that come from?, he was supposed to hate this idiot, and yet he couldn’t resist, not when some strands of his blond hair fell over his eyes, tainted by the ocean, but with a hint of darkness to them, like an eclipse. Damen shook his head and furrowed deeper under the sheets. “Not now, please”, because he didn’t feel strong enough to reply, his heart ached. And the picture of him and his family was a burning, aching reminder next to him, scarring itself intro his brain.  
   
The pathetic way it must have sounded was enough for Laurent to raise an eyebrow and walk inside, without adding any other comment. He wished he could get his payback for the way Laurent had treated him the night before, but he knew that if he had the opportunity, he wouldn’t take it. That simply wasn’t the way he was. He was the kind of person who solved a problem by fighting and defeating. Simple as that.  
   
He fell asleep some time later, without even knowing if hours or mere seconds had passed by. Laurent had laid on his own bed, lit by a lamp next to his desk, and was focused on reading something that Damen was certain hadn’t been assigned at school. So most probably, Laurent enjoyed reading. Which, now that he thought about it, was the only piece of information he had on his roommate, aside from the fact that he was an asshole. It was certainly stupid, but that bit of information felt like an improvement for Damen. They didn’t talk, so there was an awkward kind of silence settling over the room, impregnating it all, including the air they breathed. Silence was heavy. Silence was loud.  
   
If he could, Damen would sit and ask him a couple of questions, trying to break the ice. He loved talking to people, and to be honest, there was something about Laurent that represented a challenge on itself, some kind of enigma. But he already knew better than that. And the memories, the ever-present ache of Jokaste’s absence was still taking a toll on him, so he chose to remain silent, to accept the weight and the pressure of the air around them, and to hold onto it for as long as he could, for it was better than being locked out of his own room.  
                                                                                                                               
*****  
   
And yet, two days later he wished he could hold onto anything but silence, because it was becoming unbearable. Laurent hadn’t uttered another word since that night at their room, and the more time it passed, the louder that silence became. Stupidly, Damen even wished Laurent would lock him out again, lose his keys, leave something of his at Lost and Found… anything so they would get to talk again, even if it meant Damen would have to get angry and frustrated at him while Laurent prodded at him.  
   
Because all of this made life more difficult.  
   
That night, Damen attempted to make some small, meaningless conversation after Laurent arrived to their room without even saying hello, while he rummaged for something to read, an activity he seemed to enjoy quite a lot. So it was something he could talk about with him. Wasn’t it?  
   
Damen sighed and locked his phone, scooting closer to the edge of the bed while Laurent ignored him. Finally, he settled on a book Damen couldn’t distinguish the cover of.  
   
Damen cleared his throat. “What are you reading?”, he asked, at a loss of what else to say.  
   
Laurent’s eyes remained on the book, but for a small second, he seemed surprised that Damen had broken the silent treatment. He, however, stood quiet for a long while, long enough to make Damen wonder if he would ever reply at all.  
   
“A book”, was all he said.  
   
Damen couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Yeah, I can tell that”.  
   
“Then why do you ask the obvious?”, Laurent replied, sounding quite annoyed.  
   
Damen sighed. “Let me rephrase, then. What book are you _currently_ reading?”  
   
Laurent couldn’t suppress a small smile on his face at hearing Damen’s emphasis on the word ‘currently’, but it was over as fast as it had appeared.  
   
“Oscar Wilde. _De Profundis_ ”, Laurent replied, his eyes still fixed on the book.  
   
“Hmm, what is it about?”, Damen asked curiously.  
   
“Something far too complex for you to understand”, Laurent said sharply.  
   
Damen let the remark slide. “Try me”, he said, without anger, he knew he should expect something like that.  
   
Laurent sighed and closed the book. “I don’t have the patience for it. And since you seem to be so keen on engaging on stupid conversation, I’ll leave you be”, he said before throwing the book towards the desk, crawling under the covers and turning off the lamp next to his bed and laying on his side.  
   
Damen stood still, wondering for a second what had just happened? He had just attempted some small talk, how could he have fucked up so badly? What was up with Laurent? It was eight o’clock, and he was already falling asleep to avoid talking to Damen?  
   
He sighed and shook his head before choosing to lay in bed and watch some Netflix until he fell asleep. Laurent remained silent during the night.  
   
   
*****  
   
The next night, as promised by Nikandros, Damen got wasted. And _God,_ how much he’d missed it, that slow, progressive feeling crawling through your veins and taking them whole until you weren’t you but a slightly better version of you -or a worse one, but Damen preferred to think it was a better one-, that moment when you felt your inhibitions slowly fading away, and the world suddenly seemed a bit more bearable, a bit brighter. He needed it now more than ever, not that he’d gotten drunk too many times in his life, but when everything else in his life was crumbling apart, he could still get a chance to feel _this,_ to feel a little more alive.  
   
They were in Pallas’ room, after he’d stolen some of his father’s booze before he’d invited them all to the official opening of the school year in the best way they knew. Nik was slumped next to him in the floor, barely managing to hold his head still and Damen was laughing at something Pallas had said but he couldn’t remember what it was. He looked up and felt the room spinning around him, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, he wasn’t yet at that stage when you couldn’t even manage to stand up and he didn’t feel tired nor sleepy. He felt _good._  
  
And then Jokaste. Like an intrusive thought that started as a small, nagging feeling in the back of his head and slowly spiraled and grew and grew and grew and grew and turned gigantic and unavoidable and invincible, the image of her reproduced inside his brain, and he felt the sharp pain that usually came with the thought, except this time it was more intense, for all his senses were on alert -or were they too sluggish to stop it? He couldn’t tell the difference-, and it stabbed at him, the memory of her and her smile and the way she blushed and the way she said his name and the way she panted his name and he _missed_ her so much and suddenly the world seemed a bit less bearable and the thought of her was killing him and oh god this had been such a terrible idea. Whatever had gone through his mind when he agreed to this? And the world and the room around him was spinning and spinning but he wasn’t quite certain if he could blame it or not on the alcohol, or just the seductive, painful, addictive thought of her and what he’d lost.  
   
While he went through a thousand different emotions at the same time, his friends didn’t even seem to notice, for they were too busy trying to learn how to make Pallas’ iPod work while trying to find another song. Damen sat there, staring into nothingness, closing his eyes, working through his wave of nausea and forcing himself to let her go, but she wouldn’t go, and his breathing was ragged and when had Nik stood up? How much time had passed?  
   
He leaned more heavily against the couch, for he doubted he could stay sitting by himself. And he squeezed his eyes shut. In the background, he listened to the sounds of a classic rock song Nik and Pallas had finally agreed on, but he couldn’t even recognize them, because he was too lost inside his own brain.  
   
Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked up to find Nik staring at him with a worried -and a bit blurry and hazy- gaze, “Damen, you okay?”, he slurred.  
   
Damen shook his head. Nik sat next to him but didn’t ask him anything, he just stared at Pallas, who had his eyes fixed on Damen as well.  
   
Damen took a deep breath and forced himself to _say_ it. He had to. He could use his current state as an excuse and he certainly planned to. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper and was blurred by alcohol, for his tongue felt a thousand pounds heavier. “I- just- I miss her _so much_ ”, he said and he stopped himself because then he would probably start sobbing and that was certainly a no-no for him. _And I miss him too,_ he wanted to say, but couldn’t.  
   
“She was a bitch, man”, Nik told him, “and so was your brother”.  
   
Damen nodded with a sigh, but remained silent. He didn’t know what else to say, suddenly his brain felt heavier and so did his body and all he wanted was to lay down and fall asleep so he could get the memory of her off his brain.  
   
He distantly heard Nik’s voice calling out his name but he was too tired, and then he told Pallas something he couldn’t quite figure out nor understand.  
   
“Come man, I’ll take you to your room”.  
   
“Nah, I’m fine”, Damen managed to mumble.  
   
“You are fucked”, Pallas told him, rubbing his forehead. “Come on, Damen”.  
   
Nik pulled Damen to his feet but none of them was strong nor stable enough to keep them upright and both ended up on the floor, Nik laughing, while Damen could only think that the floor seemed like such a perfect and comfortable place and he definitely wouldn’t mind if he fell asleep then and there and he was so tired… but then both Nik and Pallas were pulling him up and leaning his weight on both their shoulders and thank god they were because Damen was certain he wouldn’t be able to stand in any other way.  
   
“He’s too much of a giant. My shoulders will be sore tomorrow”, Pallas whispered to Nik.  
   
“I love you guys”, Damen told him when the three of them were finally standing.  
   
“Shut up man! No one can know we’re doing this”, Pallas warned him while Nik laughed and covered his mouth to stifle a giggle after Pallas threw a murderer glance at him just before opening the door of his room.  
   
They dragged Damen towards his room, and he struggled to remain silent, but in the end he managed to. As they stood in front of his door, Nik whispered, “shit! Do you have your key?”  
   
Damen nodded, because he knew he had it, but he’d forgotten where he’d put it. “it’s- somewhere-”, he tried to remember, but everything was a blur.  
   
“We wouldn’t be able to open the door either way, Nik”, Pallas told him with a hiccup. “ _Too drunk_ ”, and he smiled.  
   
“Fuck”, Nik mumbled.  
   
“LAURENT!”, Damen yelled and then felt Nik punching him in the stomach softly.  
   
“Damen, shut the fuck up!”, Nik whispered while Pallas looked around, his eyes wide with panic, before he said, “shhh!”  
   
Nik rummaged through Damen’s pockets until he finally found the key. He fumbled with it for a while, almost unable to open the door, but with Pallas’ help they finally managed to open it with the key. Laurent was halfway towards the door when they opened it.  
   
“Laurent”, Damen whispered, more quietly.  
   
Laurent raised an eyebrow as he stared at the three of them, his arms crossed over his chest, managing to look cold, detached and intimidating even while wearing his pjs. “You can count yourselves lucky he had his key with himself, I was planning on leaving him sleeping on the floor outside the bedroom all night”.  
   
“Yeah, no one asked for your opinion, asshole”, Nik told him, sobering up after meeting Laurent for the first time.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes and went back to his bed while Pallas and Nik struggled to put Damen, who was already half-unconscious, on the bed.  
   
They didn’t mutter another word and closed the door behind them without saying goodbye to Laurent nor getting one from him. It was clear that there was already some bad blood between Laurent and Nikandros.  
   
Damen sighed and opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling.  
   
Laurent turned to look at him. “If you throw up in the room, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. Consider yourself warned”.  
   
Damen couldn’t help but smile. The smile then turned into a giggle, something that clearly annoyed Laurent.  
   
“Shut up and let me sleep”, Laurent said.  
   
Damen didn’t. He kept laughing. There was something about sharing the room with Laurent that he found amusing. The whole situation was a bit crazy. And the worst part? He didn’t _hate_ Laurent, not entirely, even though he had every reason on Earth to hate him. He found it in himself that he simply couldn’t.  
   
A second later, a pillow hit him on the face. “Ouch!”, Damen said between giggles.  
   
“If you keep laughing, a shoe will follow”, Laurent said as he hid himself beneath his covers.  
   
Damen took the pillow off his face and stared at the ceiling but didn’t keep laughing. He was already exhausted.  
   
The room was far too silent. Everything felt too intense, too heavy, or maybe it was just Damen’s brain playing tricks on him, but he felt it nonetheless.  
   
And then, out of nowhere, unbidden, uncontrollable, unstoppable, “you remind me of her”, Damen said, barely above a whisper, but loud enough that Laurent could hear him.  
   
Everything was silent again. Damen blinked, trying to understand what he’d just told Laurent, and wondering why on Earth he’d said that. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind, not technically, or had it? He couldn’t quite tell at the moment. His brain was sluggish, and he was afraid that his tongue would unwillingly spill another truth at Laurent’s face, just like that.  
   
The rustle of the blankets was too loud amidst the silence.  
   
He felt Laurent’s eyes on him.  
   
He didn’t turn.  
   
He kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling. He couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ turn.  
   
“Of who?”, Laurent asked just as quietly as Damen’s voice tone.  
   
Damen closed his eyes. He couldn’t reply. It would make it too real. It would make her too real.

  
But it was true. He reminded him of Jokaste.  
   
Enticing, magnetic, enigmatic, mysterious, attractive.  
   
Cold, detached, frigid, capable of breaking anyone’s heart with a snap of his fingers.  
   
The room was silent again. His breathing and Laurent’s were too loud. Too loud.  
   
Laurent stared at him for a long while, but when he finally realized Damen wasn’t going to reply, he hid himself beneath the covers again.  
   
“Good night, Laurent”, Damen whispered, knowing he wouldn’t get a reply.  
   
A second, a minute later or somewhere in between, he listened to a quiet, shy voice. “Good night, Damen”.  
   
Enticing, magnetic, enigmatic, mysterious, attractive.  
   
Damen fell asleep with a smile on his face.


	3. Chapter 3

The thing is: the hungover always makes you feel like the night before wasn’t worth it.  
   
The thing is: after the joy and the relaxation the alcohol provides are gone, you’re still miserable.  
   
The thing was: Damen was miserable _even_ while drinking. Which meant that he woke up only feeling worse, and on top of that, terribly hungover.  
   
“Wake up, brute!”, he heard someone yelling at his ear.  
   
He groaned while all his systems slowly came back to consciousness, because as he woke up, he progressively felt more and more like shit.  
   
He opened one eye to find Laurent staring at him amusedly. The curtains were opened and the sunlight shone brightly and he had to immediately close his eye again because he felt he was going to _die._ The sunlight was too much. It felt like a laser ray breaking through his cranium and shooting him right on the brain.  
   
“What time is it?”, he managed to say, his throat dry and his voice raspy.  
   
“8 a.m., time to rise and shine”, Laurent replied, the smile on his face obvious by the amusement in his voice.  
   
“Argh- it’s a fucking _Saturday_ ”, Damen said, groaning.  
   
“But there’s no time to waste on this _beautiful_ day!”, Laurent replied, faking excitement.  
   
“Pretty certain you don’t give a fuck about this beautiful day”, Damen said.  
   
“Of course I don’t. I just want you to suffer”.  
   
Damn squeezed his eyes shut. “Why?”, he asked helplessly.  
   
“Because”, Laurent replied, standing up, walking towards Damen’s bed and quickly taking the covers off Damen’s bed. Damen covered his eyes with his arm, trying to block the sunlight off.  
   
Feeling dizzy and nauseous, Damen sat up and looked at Laurent with a _I’m definitely going to murder you_ face, but as soon as his eyes finally -and barely- managed to adjust to the light, he recognized the shape of his face, the image becoming sharper and sharper until Damen could see--- Laurent was _laughing._ A hand covering his mouth but his eyes betraying him, and so his body, which was shaking with badly stifled giggles. Damen couldn’t help but laugh as well, the nausea forgotten for a second at the sight. Laurent was an idiot, a cruel, arrogant idiot, but somehow the golden strays of light falling from his head and over his eyes seemed to shine just a little bit brighter when he smiled.  
   
Where the _fuck_ had that thought come from?  
   
Damen grabbed his pillow and threw it to Laurent, hitting him right on the head. “If you keep laughing, a shoe will follow”, he said, reciting back Laurent’s words from the night before. Laurent turned to look at him with a dead gaze and Damen smiled.  
   
“Want me to bring you breakfast?”, Laurent asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m certain they have some wonderful eggs with bacon-”  
   
Oh, and Damen’s nausea _definitely_ came back. At the mention of food, Damen stood up in a rush and ran towards their bathroom to throw up. This was certainly the worst part of the hungover. Every time it happened to him he wondered what the hell had he been thinking when he agreed to drink that much amount of alcohol, and he would swear he would never do it again, which he didn’t, of course, until it happened again.  
   
When he got out of the bathroom, Laurent was already gone. Damen was going to kill him as soon as he came back. However, when he thought of that idiot, his mind was immediately filled with flashes of gold brighter than the sunlight.  
   
And Damen hated him for that. Him and his stupid hair.  
   
But he couldn’t help but feel like in a weird and a creepy way, their relationship had just improved a fraction.  
   
And the thought thrilled him, just a little bit.  
   
And Damen hated him for that as well.  
   
He checked his phone. He had some text messages from Nik, sent the night before.  
   
Sent [1:30 a.m.]  
_We weren’t caught by the way thx for askin_  
  
Sent [1:31 a.m.]  
_Good luck w the hungover tmrow btw_  
  
Sent [1:35 a.m.]  
_Hope ur roommate doesn’t kill u for waking him up_  
  
Sent [1:36 a.m.]  
_He looks a bit like Jokaste don’t you think?_  
_If u think so then u r fucked_  
_Kay goodnight xx_  
  
Damen chose to ignore it. Of course the thought had occurred to him, but he preferred not to dwell on it. It was stupid. He might look like his ex and he might look like the exact definition of someone he would consider his type, but after knowing him, every trace of attraction had left. He was a stupid, arrogant asshole and a golden hair and a pair of big, blue eyes could not change that.  
   
*******  
   
He spent the next weekend at Nik’s house. His mom loved him and she brightened up when she saw him again, immediately filling him with pastries and junk food, which Damen loved. Later, the three of them watched a movie on the living room and as Nik fell asleep over the couch, Damen smiled to himself. He missed this. Just having the opportunity to spend some kind of family time, even if it’s just to pretend to be watching some movies. He was invaded by a sense of nostalgia that ached. He knew he wouldn’t get that again, at least not with his family. Or what was left of it. He might as well enjoy any chance of finding a ‘home’ he could get.  
   
He fell asleep on the couch as well.  
   
The next morning, he sat on the balcony of Nik’s house, staring at the city as it slowly woke up on a sunny Sunday.  
   
“Not over her, eh?”, Nik asked him after a long while in which Damen’s thoughts seemed to scatter all over the place.  
   
Damen blinked. “What?”, he asked.  
   
“You’re still not over Jokaste”, Nik told him, an affirmation, not a question.  
   
Damen shook his head.  
   
Nik sighed. “She wasn’t a nice person”.  
   
Damen turned to look at him. “It’s not even that… I have to say sometimes I feel relieved, but Kastor- he, he is my brother. And now everything is fucked up”.  
   
“We’ve been friends for a long time, Damen”, Nik said, fully turning towards him, “and I can tell you he wasn’t a nice person either. He was a bully at school, he barely paid attention to you, and if he were a nice person, a good brother, he would have never done that, or at least he would be sorry”.  
   
Damen took a sip of coffee and focused on the flavor instead. It was too hot and it burned his tongue, but it was better than confronting all his thoughts about Kastor. Because he knew Nikandros was right, but he also had a deep, urgent need to defend his brother, to debunk all those accusations. But he didn’t have anything to say, nothing to defend him, nothing remarkable to say.  
   
_He used to carry me around his shoulders._  
   
_He taught me how to play football. He laughed when I first defeated him. I found out later that he’d let me win._  
   
All of those had stopped happening long time ago. And to be honest, the Kastor who slept with Jokaste was not the same Kastor he built the sand castle with, he was not even close.    
   
“I _know_ that and yet-”  
   
“And yet you want to reach out to him and pretend all of this never happened”.  
   
Damen nodded. Damn it. Nikandros knew him better than anyone.  
   
“Maybe you should try”.  
   
“Not yet”, Damen replied, “I’m not ready yet. I’m certain my first instinct would be to kick at least one of his teeth off, and that would not be a great start”.  
   
Nik shrugged. “It wouldn’t be too terrible if you ask me”.  
   
Damen laughed.  
   
“And what about her?”  
   
Damen shrugged. “Not much to do about that, is there?”  
   
Nik smiled. “Find yourself another chick”, he said playfully.  
   
Damen shook his head. “Not in the mood”.  
   
“Why?”  
   
Damen scratched the back of his head. “Can we please talk about something else?”  
   
“Okay. Let’s talk about your roommate”.  
   
Damen groaned. “Worse”.  
   
Nik laughed. “Is he still giving you hell?”  
   
“Depends on his mood. But most of the time we don’t even talk, which is awkward and annoying”.  
   
“ _He_ is awkward and annoying”.  
   
“-And a pain in the ass and arrogant, and so obnoxious, he believes he’s above everyone and everything. And yet, he manages to manipulate everyone around him. I hate him”.  
   
Nik was giving him a weird look that Damen couldn’t quite figure it out. “He has long blond hair and blue eyes”, he said out of nowhere.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. “I know, everywhere he walks, everyone stares at him like he’s some work of art to admire. He believes the world is at his feet and-”.  
   
“No, that’s not what I meant. What I meant is that… that’s your weakness, Damen. And he’s your roommate, your roommate who locked you out and who never misses a chance to make you seem like an idiot. You have got to be careful, because he seems to be a proper dick”.  
   
Damen was staring at him with wide and horrified eyes. “What’s that you’re drinking?”, he asked, eyeing Nik’s cup.  
   
Nik stared at him seriously.  
   
“I- I”, he couldn’t believe he was having this conversation at all. “Fine, I admit it. Yes, he is the embodiment of my _type_ of person, but after meeting him and sharing rooms with him and getting to know this despiteful, manipulative, fucked up side of him, I just- I feel nothing but anger towards him. He’s an asshole because he _chooses_ to be an asshole, and that’s something I simply can’t understand. It would never happen, Nik, not with him and his serpent-like, emotionless expressions”.  
   
“Not to mention he must be so _frigid_ in bed”, Nik said, laughing.  
   
“We are _not_ talking about my roommate having sex”.  
   
Nik seemed slightly relieved. “I have got to admit he _is_ a bit terrifying”.  
   
Damen laughed. “Yeah, yeah”, he ruffled his hair and barely managed to suppress another smile from creeping on his face. “Yes, he is. Try living with him”.  
   
“Never tell him I said that or I’ll never talk to you again”.  
   
“Wouldn’t even if I wanted to. We barely even talk”.  
   
“Funny, isn’t it?”, Nik said, “he’s capable of making two big guys scared of him with just a look”.  
   
Damen smiled. “You have to grant him that much at least”.  
   
********  
   
That Sunday night, he came back to his room to find Laurent reading on his bed. He put the book down for a second, stared back at Damen, and then went back to his book without even saying hello. Which was not every unusual from Laurent, after all. What did surprise him though, was that Laurent had stayed at the school for that weekend as well, which made Damen wonder if he had problems with his family, or if they lived too far away, or if he simply didn’t feel like visiting them. He couldn’t help but notice that Laurent looked exhausted, with bags under his eyes.  
   
“So, how was your weekend?”, Damen asked him awkwardly, trying to break the silence.  
   
“Magnificent”, Laurent replied without taking his eyes off the book. And then, there was silence once again. Damen rubbed his forehead, wondering if he should just leave and go visit Nik or Pallas at their rooms when Laurent’s phone rang.  
   
He put the book down and grew immediately tense. Damen could tell by everything about him but his face. His shoulders clenched, his back straightened, but his expression remained as emotionless as always. Maybe he was starting to know Laurent somehow, because someone else might have not recognized those subtle physical changes that told him that despite what he tried to show the rest of the world, he might be a human being after all.  
   
A second later, he stood up and he sighed, a long suffering sigh, before finally picking up the phone. Damen managed to hear a “Yes, uncle?”, before Laurent locked himself in the bathroom.  
   
So he did have a family, then. He just hadn’t felt like visiting them, Damen supposed. It was hard to tell with Laurent. Maybe this uncle was calling him to reproach him for not going home during the weekends or something like that.  
   
Laurent emerged from the bathroom almost half an hour later, his face of exertion somehow deepened after the conversation with his uncle. Damen didn’t ask him anything, and he knew Laurent wouldn’t want him to know either way.  
   
They both fell asleep pretending that the other already was.  
   
And then Damen was woken up by a series of gasps and a couple of cries for help coming from Laurent’s bed.  
   
At first he squeezed his eyes shut, thinking that perhaps it was all a creation of his sleep-muddled mind, but then the screams got louder. He sat up and turned to look at Laurent, who was tossing and rolling around in bed, as if he was desperately seeking a way out of his own mind.  
   
Laurent was having a nightmare.  
   
And despite the bad blood between them, that was a sight that Damen simply did not want to see, and that he was certain Laurent would never allow him to see, under different circumstances.  
   
He stood up and walked towards Laurent’s bed, calling his name.  
   
Calling it louder.  
   
Still no response.  
   
Calling it again, and again.  
   
Laurent finally stood still and he sat up with a gasp. As his eyes opened, Damen realized it would only make things worse if the first thing Laurent saw as he woke up from a nightmare was his gigantic figure looming over him, so he sat at a small corner of the bed, trying to be the less invasive he could, but thinking Laurent could use the company.  
   
Laurent looked around confusedly, as if he couldn’t quite distinguish where he was waking up at. And as soon as his brain finally seemed to catch up on his surroundings, he let out a sigh of relief.  
   
“Damen?”, he asked, low, very low, amidst the darkness.  
   
Damen nodded and cleared his throat, but no voice came out of it. He tried again. “Yes. I’m here”.  
   
Laurent took another couple of shuddering breaths before pulling the blankets tighter around himself, and moving towards the wall, as if he was afraid of what Damen could do.  
   
“You were having a nightmare”, Damen felt the need to say, barely above a whisper.  
   
“Thanks. I truly needed someone to state the obvious for me at the moment”, Laurent said, a bit of his regality back.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. There it was.  Laurent being Laurent again. He didn’t dignify Laurent’s remark with a reply and simply stood up and went to the bathroom, where he filled a glass with water which he left over Laurent’s bedside, carefully avoiding looking at him as he walked past his bed. He then returned to his own bed, sitting on the edge of it.  
   
Laurent remained silent for a while. The silence seemed to fill every single space around them, it was too heavy, far too heavy. But none of them broke it. Not until Laurent murmured a small… “thank you”.  
   
Damen nodded. “Are you alright?”  
   
Laurent didn’t reply to that question. Instead he muttered, “I didn’t ask for your assistance”.  
   
“But you needed it”, Damen said.  
   
“I did not”, was all Laurent said.  
   
Damen sighed and shook his head. Any normal person in the world would apologize for waking him up at one in the morning and thank him for the gesture of waking them up after what seemed like a horrible nightmare instead of complaining for being pulled out of it.  
   
But this was Laurent and Damen supposed Laurent was not like any normal person in the world.  
   
And Damen felt incredibly frustrated because of that.  
   
He didn’t say another word, feeling angry and yet slightly worried.  
   
He felt Laurent shifting under the blankets, apparently calm enough to go back to sleep.  
   
Damen stood still in the dark, unable to understand anything. It took him a long while before he was able to fall back asleep again.  
   
*******  
   
Laurent had a huge ability to pretend like nothing had ever happened. Ever. He went on with his life without mentioning the nightmares nor what could have possibly triggered them, and Damen didn’t dare to ask.  
   
And so, they moved on, mostly ignoring each other and dreading having to share their chambers with one another. Laurent was an arrogant prick that hated Damen for no apparent reason while all he tried to do was to make the space slightly more amenable for one another. Laurent spent most of his days alone by choice -Damen would find out, after realizing the way most of the girls and some of the boys turned to look at him whenever he walked into a place-, and yet it was as if his solitude was a cloak he could hide himself beneath.  
   
Damen spent all of his free time on football practice. He’d always enjoyed physical challenges. He’d always enjoyed to reach that point where his brain seemed to drift off, where trouble seemed to be far, far away, where all that mattered was to control his breathing, to keep pushing his muscles, to keep going forward. Plus, there were _lots_ of advantages to being a jock in the school, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the popularity playing on a sports team brought to him.   
   
A month after classes had started, Damen came to realize his thoughts kept drifting towards Laurent more than they should, more than it was considered normal for a roommate to think about his roommate. The memory of Jokaste and Kastor seemed to vanish from his mind, as if it was pushed right into a corner without him even intending to. Memories became blurry, faded with time, faces forgotten, words fading. Eventually, Jokaste started to feel like an old and bizarre dream he’d dreamt one night, and he forbade himself to stop and dwell on it.  
   
He forbade himself to stop and dwell on the fact he was thinking about Laurent so much as well, and thus his life seemed to get much simpler.  
   
And yet, Damen took it like a personal challenge to figure him out. He had never been one for mental challenges, but Laurent was an enigma Damen couldn’t simply let go. It wasn’t easy though, because Laurent barely felt like talking. Damen couldn’t understand, Laurent was away most of all the time and yet he wasn’t in any club, he wasn’t involved in anything, didn’t have any friends…nothing. He was a mystery to everybody.  
   
Damen didn’t want to push it, didn’t feel like it was his place to do it.  
   
“I see you’ve joined the football team”, Laurent told Damen one night while he had his face buried on a book.  
   
Damen blinked and turned to look at him in surprise. It had been a while since they’d last talked and everything was awkwardly silent between them lately. “Yeah”.  
   
“Hm”, Laurent said.  
   
“What?”, Damen pressed him.  
   
“Doesn’t suit you”, he replied, simply.  
   
“It doesn’t?”, he asked.  
   
“Thought you’d join another sport, like naked wrestling or something like that, you know, more appropriate for giants like you”, Laurent said, his eyes never leaving his book.  
   
“Funny because I thought you’d join the mathletes or something like that”.  
   
“I don’t like maths”, Laurent said, his face flinching with disgust. “Nor people”.  
   
“Really? But you’re so nice to everybody”, Damen retorted, sarcastically. He mentally told himself not to ask this question, _forced_ himself not to ask the question, but his impulse control was so terribly poor that- “do you have any friends?”  
   
Laurent’s eyes widened. He turned to look at Damen with something akin to anger showing in his face, but it was gone so soon that if he’d blinked, he might have lost it. But he hadn’t blinked, he stared at Laurent with wide eyes, shocked that he’d even asked that question in the first place.  
   
“That is none of your concern”, Laurent replied.  
   
Damen felt the sudden shift of mood. Their conversation had flown relatively easily so far, despite their remarks against one another, but that question had ruined the entire environment.  
   
“You’re right, I-”-  
   
“Shut up now”, Laurent said.  
   
So Damen did.  
   
Laurent put the book closer to him, covering his face, making it quite clear that he was not intending to pursue further conversation with Damen. Actually, that was the longest they’d talked to each other in a couple of weeks. Damen sighed. “Good night”, he said, tucking himself beneath the covers. He wanted to apologize, but he couldn’t even understand what he was apologizing for. He hated the fact that he had to thread so carefully around Laurent, as if every word he said and every action he committed was like a blow against a delicate glass. A snap of the fingers and he’d break. A snap of the fingers and he would break Damen. They were both walking on thin ice around one another.  
   
Laurent didn’t reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bit of a transition chapter, the action will start next chapter! Thank you so so much for reading, for commenting and leaving kudos, see you next week! :3


	4. Chapter 4

Damen really shouldn’t have felt as excited as he did. He really shouldn’t.  
   
And yet he couldn’t help it.  
   
By the time Biology class came on Monday morning, and after a couple of awkward days in which he knew Laurent wasn’t particularly angry at him but was still choosing to ignore him, Damen felt like he was growing out of his skin. He still felt like whenever Laurent was at their bedroom he reached a wall he crashed against. And he was unable to break the fortress, no matter how hard he tried.  
   
Actually, he wondered why he was even trying at all, but truth was that he wanted to _win_ this challenge, he wanted to prove himself capable of doing it, of befriending Laurent. But at the moment it seemed like an absolute impossibility.  
   
Guion mentioned something Damen actually didn’t pay any attention to, but then he heard everyone else in the classroom standing up, walking and talking around. He looked left and right, and asked Jord, who was sitting behind him, what the hell was going on.  
   
“Guion just asked us to make pairs for our field trip. It’s in two weeks”, Jord replied, with a smile on his face as his eyes met Aimeric’s.  
   
Damen sighed. He didn’t actually have any close friends in here -he actually only ever interacted with Jord whenever he knocked in Nik’s room-, and he wasn’t in a very talkative mood at the moment. He thought it wouldn’t be that difficult, considering he was wearing his team jacket, which always earned him popularity points with the rest of the school, but-  
   
Wait.  
   
Laurent stood up in a rush from his seat at the other end of the classroom -for he pointedly avoided Damen through all the classes they had together- and walked towards Guion. Damen’s eyes fixed on him as he stood there. He was certain Laurent was asking Guion to allow him to be alone. He could see Guion shaking his head from far away.  
   
Laurent’s shoulders slumped a little.  
   
A smile drew on Damen’s face.  
   
Laurent looked around the classroom, as if trying to find out who else was alone. Damen kept staring at him. Laurent didn’t seem to notice. His blue eyes studied the room over and over again, not quite looking at Damen. A minute later, his eyes finally fixed on Damen.  
   
Damen’s smile widened, just a little bit.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes and tucked a strand of hair that was falling over his face behind his ear before walking towards Damen, who stared at him with a smug smile on his face.  
   
“Yes?”, Damen asked.  
   
Laurent cleared his throat and looked around. He then crossed his arms, defensively. “Everyone else has a partner”, Laurent started.  
   
“I can see that, yes”, Damen said with a nod.  
   
“And Guion just told me it was mandatory to make the work in pairs”, Laurent continued.  
   
“Is it?”  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “Yes. Yes it is”.  
   
“Hmm, interesting”, Damen said, and looked around the class. “Wonder who I can pair up with”, he muttered to himself, but loud enough for Laurent to hear.  
   
Laurent sighed loudly and Damen felt excitement blooming in his stomach. This was way more fun than it should be. “Don’t play hard to get, brute”, Laurent said, annoyed.  
   
“Sorry, what?”, Damen said, taken aback.  
   
“I’m asking you-”  
   
“You’re insulting me”.  
   
“I am not. I was merely stating a truth”, Laurent replied, defensively.  
   
“Was that another insult?”  
   
Laurent cleared his throat again. “Listen. _Damianos_ ”, he said with a small and fake smile in his face. “I know you don’t have a pair for this project and neither do I so-”  
   
“So?”, Damen asked.  
   
“You are truly going to make me say it, aren’t you?”, Laurent asked.  
   
“Oh, yes”.  
   
“Fine, asshole. You are the only person I talk to in this class-”  
   
“Oh so what you do is _talking?_ I thought all you did was growling”.  
   
“Stop interrupting me”.  
   
“Alright, I won’t. You were saying?”  
   
“I was saying… since you’re the only person I know and we are _forced_ to share chambers, it wouldn’t be entirely inadequate to pair up for this project”, Laurent said fast, as if he needed to get it out of his chest before he choked out.  
   
“You’re right. It wouldn’t be entirely inadequate”, Damen said, before turning his gaze back to his notebook and starting to scribble on it. Laurent rolled his eyes. Damen ignored him.  
   
A beat, then two. Finally, Laurent spoke again. “So?”  
   
Damen looked up. “So what?”, he said, feigning innocence.  
   
“Are you going to reply or not?”, Laurent said, growing impatient.  
   
“Reply to what? You didn’t ask me anything”, Damen retorted, smugly.  
   
Laurent’s nostrils flared. “I’m going to murder you”, he whispered lowly.  
   
“Sorry, what? Didn’t quite catch that”.  
   
“I am asking you if you _want_ to pair up with me for the biology project”.  
   
Damen grinned. “Since you’ve asked so nicely-”, he said, but couldn’t finish because Laurent had already turned his back and left. Damen giggled as soon as Laurent walked away. This was certainly exciting. They could end up killing each other, but Damen couldn’t wait for it, if he was honest.  
   
*****  
   
That night, Laurent walked into their room after Damen did, and he didn’t look happy at all. Damen however, received him with a smile on his face. “Hi, partner!”, he said faking excitement.  
Laurent threw himself on the bed with a sigh, “shut up”, he said, annoyed.  
   
Damen laughed but complied. He’d irritated Laurent enough, and he truly shouldn’t push his luck. He knew that at the moment Laurent couldn’t pull off another little joke like locking him out of the room because Damen would leave him alone for the project, so Damen felt slightly relieved already, like a weight had been taken off his shoulders.  
   
He felt a pillow hitting him on the face _yet again._ “Go take a shower, you stink”, Laurent said, burying his face on his other pillow.  
   
“I just came back from jogging”, Damen replied. “You should take one as well, you smell like an old man”.  
   
“I was in the library all day”, Laurent added.  
   
“Must be that, then”, Damen commented before going to the bathroom.  
   
After taking his shower, he realized he’d left his pjs over his bed, and he walked out of the bath with a sigh. Laurent was reading a book but Damen could feel his eyes on him as soon as he walked with only a towel wrapped around his waist.  
   
“What do you think you’re doing?”, Laurent asked.  
   
“Forgot my pjs”, Damen replied, sitting on his bed and reaching out to grab his shirt.  
   
Laurent stared at him for a moment, his expression unreadable. Damen didn’t pay him any mind. Laurent kept staring. Damen frowned. “Can I help you?”, he said, fixing his eyes on Laurent.  
   
Laurent blinked and shook his head. A second later, he smiled smugly. “I think you have to start using elbow pads or something. You know, in case you fall over again”.  
   
Damen looked at his elbow. _Damn it._ He’d actually tripped while running during practice and his elbow was bleeding. He cleaned it and dressed quickly, just as Laurent stood up to go to the bathroom and get ready for sleep.  
   
He simply couldn’t understand how Laurent managed to turn the cards around and humiliate Damen on any single occasion he got.  
   
That asshole and his stupid hair and his blue eyes.  
   
Damen was _definitely_ looking forward to that field trip.  
   
*******  
  
He was on track during the next couple of days.  
   
His team had won the first match in preparation for the beginning of the season, he’d been chosen as the MVP and it had been a good balance. He’d heard rumors that Govart, the current captain of the team -and someone he really didn’t get along with-, was probably thinking about quitting after an injury on his heel that he hadn’t quite managed to recover from, which meant he was the most suitable candidate to replace him. And did he dream of becoming captain of the team.  
   
He’d missed playing. He’d missed it so much. He’d joined the football team since he had memory, often playing alongside his brother -and always running faster than him and scoring more touchdowns than him- but this time, he felt it as an aching need, rather than just a pastime. And oh, how he’d needed it.  
   
Not to mention the fact he barely allowed himself to think about Jokaste at all. He had been right: focusing on the exertion, on the strain of his muscles, and getting lost amidst the cheers and the lights and the field was all he needed to start healing the wounds she’d left. It wasn’t enough to heal the wounds his brother had left -for his relationship was ruined forever, Damen knew-, but it would have to do. Every once in a while he allowed the memory of her to invade his brain, but then he realized she no longer invaded it, she wasn’t there all the time, in every single corner of his mind. Her memory was turning more like into a ghost, showing herself only when she wanted to be seen, when Damen truly wanted to see her.  
   
And Damen realized, with time, that the ghost of her memory didn’t inflict as much pain as he thought. It still hurt, of course, but it wasn’t that piercing, specific pain that seemed to connect every vessel of his brain towards his heart and produce a kind of physical pain that not only could not be explained with science, for it didn’t make any sense, but which felt chronically, endless, inescapable.  
   
It was horrible.  
   
It was the everlasting presence of a broken heart making itself known.  
   
And yet, with time, it felt less chronic, it felt less like a curse. It was fading away, a little at first and then more and more.  
   
Damen felt as if a weight was being slowly pulled off his chest, like a constriction he didn’t know he had was finally fading, like his heart could start beating properly and his lungs would finally find some oxygen.  
   
Somehow, things didn’t seem as gray as they used to two months ago. His grades were escalating and whenever he felt lonely he surrounded himself with Nikandros and Pallas and suddenly life didn’t seem as miserable.  
   
_Oh, but wait until tomorrow._ A voice inside of him said.  
   
And the smile vanished off Damen’s face, just a little bit.  
   
The next day was the excursion.  
   
The excursion he’d agreed to pair with Laurent for, back then when he thought it was a brilliant idea and it would be a lot of fun.  
   
It was a terrible idea. Damen would be miserable and locked in a forest with Laurent and all his classmates for three days. What the hell had he been thinking? Laurent wasn’t a nice person, Laurent would barely utter a word to him, Laurent wouldn’t enjoy sharing a tent with him and would make him know it at any way possible, Laurent enjoyed making Damen miserable for some reason Damen couldn’t quite understand yet and he would probably do anything at his reach to make sure that this excursion turned into a nightmare for Damen.  
   
And Damen had given him the opportunity to do it, had wholeheartedly agreed to play Laurent’s charade. Jesus, he was such an idiot. He couldn’t believe he had fallen for that one.  
   
So maybe not everything was on track.  
   
But Laurent didn’t seem to notice Damen’s inner struggle, for he went on with his life, barely acknowledging his presence, and never replying to Damen’s ‘goodnight’s. He spent most of the time either locked in the library or reading books at their bedroom, but it was slightly unusual, it was as if the initial excitement had faded, he no longer pranked Damen, and didn’t put much effort on his biting retorts. Which wasn’t an entirely terrible thing, but Damen knew Laurent better than that… or did he? Either way, something was not okay and lately Laurent seemed as if his mind was occupied by darker thoughts, as if there were some worries looming in the horizon.  
   
And those worries, or whatever the hell they were, made themselves known the night before their trip, when Laurent woke Damen up with another nightmare, but this one was worse. At first Damen’s mind was a bit hazy from sleep to make out the sounds, but then he realized: Laurent was sobbing. Softly. It was a kind of crying that seemed to come out from the depths of his heart, from the most intimate part of his soul, a kind of sobbing that was never meant to be heard by anyone else.  
   
Damen felt like he was trespassing just by breathing the same air in the same room as he did.  
   
“Laurent?”, he asked softly.  
   
Laurent didn’t reply, he simply kept on sobbing.  
   
Damen stood up. “Laurent?”, he asked once again. No reply.  
   
He walked towards Laurent’s bed and closed his eyes for a second. He was suddenly invaded by a scent so intensely _his_ that he had to take a couple of breaths until he could keep the thought of him and his stupid hair and his stupid eyes from invading his mind. He crouched in front of him. Laurent’s face was contorted in a small expression of pain. “Laurent?”  
   
A slightly clearer expression.  
   
There were tears falling down Laurent’s eyes.  
   
And it seemed _wrong._ It seemed terribly wrong. This man, with his eyes and his regal look and the way he owned every room he walked into, this man didn’t deserve to suffer.  
   
Where _the hell_ had that thought come from?  
   
Damen shook his head and curled his fingers into a fist to keep himself from cleaning the tears off Laurent’s eyes, but it was a very strong impulse at the moment.  
   
“Auguste”, Laurent whispered, a broken, low whisper.  
   
_Auguste?,_ Damen asked himself. Who was Auguste? Why was Laurent crying about him? What happened?  
   
“Auguste, NO!”, Laurent yelled and Damen knew right then he had to do something about it. He had to put Laurent out of his misery.  
   
“Laurent?”, Damen asked, a bit louder. “Laurent!”, he said.  
   
Laurent gasped and his eyes opened. Blue pupils met brown eyes. His gaze seemed blurry for a moment, then he recognized Damen and he sat up with a jolt.  
   
Damen, still crouching, took a couple of steps back. “Are you okay?”  
   
Laurent covered his face and ignored Damen’s question. “Get _out_ of here!”, Laurent said it in a way that left Damen speechless. He’d never believed that the person who had just uttered those words was the same who had cried mere seconds ago. It was a command, an order, meant only to be obeyed, there was not another option, not a _what if?,_ such was the conviction with which it had been spoken.  
   
“I- _what?_ ”  
   
“Go!”, Laurent ordered, and out of the corner of his eye, Damen could see that Laurent was rapidly cleaning the tears off his face.  
   
Damen stood up. “Okay. Okay. I’ll- I’ll be in the bathroom, if you need anything. Do you want me to bring you a glass of water?”  
   
Laurent’s face fell. “I just want you to leave me alone”, he said, his voice lacking the bite from his previous statements. “ _Please_ ”, he whispered, sounding out of breath, like he was feeling that kind of pressure on his heart and the lack of oxygen in his lungs that only came out when a heartbreak wanted to make itself known.  
   
And that did it for Damen. He stood up as fast as he could and locked himself in the bathroom. He sat over the toilet with a sigh. Something was not okay. Laurent was not okay. Damen looked back to what he’d seen of him during the day and it did seem like the bags under his eyes were a little darker, like his normally expressionless face was burdened by something. He had been a bit… worse than what he usually was.  
   
Who the hell was _Auguste?_ , Damen desperately wanted to ask him but knew he couldn’t.  
   
He _wished._ God, he _ached_ to be able to sit and talk to him, just talk. Know what was on his mind, how it worked, what burdened it. He wished he could just sit for hours and find out a little bit about the puzzle hidden behind Laurent’s sapphire eyes.  
   
But he knew it was an impossible task. He wasn’t one for giving up. But two months later, nothing had cracked Laurent’s walls, he wasn’t even close.  
   
He sighed and looked around. He hadn’t thought this through. Was he supposed to stay here for the rest of the night? What was he going to do? He hadn’t even taken his phone with him. He was miserably sitting on a toilet at 3 in the morning and pointlessly worrying for his roommate. It didn’t make any sense.  
   
So he just sat and stared around the bathroom. He looked at the shower and glanced at Laurent’s shampoo. It looked more expensive than Damen’s and, judging by Laurent’s hair, it seemed to work a thousand times better. He grabbed it and without even realizing it, he opened the bottle and smelled it and there it was again, that scent that could only mean Laurent, a kind of scent that Damen couldn’t help but associate with a very orange sunset: that spot filled with intense, yellow, bright light hiding and opening the path to darkness while the rest of the sky covered itself with a darker shade of blue. It kind of reminded him of Laurent.  
   
He liked staring at the sunset whenever he was practicing on the field.  
   
About half an hour later, and bored out of his mind, he finally decided to talk through the door. “Laurent?”, he got no reply.  
   
“Can I come out now?”, he asked, lowly.  
   
No reply.  
   
“Please. I’m bored in here, and the toilet seat is making my ass hurt”, he said and mentally kicked himself for saying that to someone like Laurent. God, he must think of him as a huge idiot.  
   
A light chuckle. Then a sigh. “Yes”, was all he heard.  
   
Damen smiled a little bit and stood up with a loud groan which only made Laurent laugh a little louder. His ass _did_ hurt, though, and so he walked out limping a little.  
   
Laurent was tucked under the covers but his eyes were opened. He was simply staring at the ceiling.  
   
Damen sat on the bed, then he looked at Laurent for a beat, then two, then-  
   
“Aren’t you going to ask me any questions?”, Laurent said, sounding like he had spent the last 30 minutes preparing himself to reply to Damen’s interrogations.  
   
Damen blinked. He was taken aback for a moment. There were a thousand questions he _ached_ to ask, starting by who Auguste was and why his name made Laurent cry. “Yes”, he said.  
   
Laurent sighed. “Shoot”, he replied.  
   
Damen took a deep breath. “Are you okay?”  
   
Laurent stood silent for a moment. Then another. And another. Then he turned to look at Damen. “What?”  
   
“Are you okay now?”  
   
Laurent kept his eyes fixed on Damen. “Yes”, he whispered. It was a lie, and they both knew it as soon as it left Laurent’s lips, but Damen wasn’t going to prod any further.  
   
Damen nodded. “Alright, then”, he laid over the bed. “Goodnight”.  
   
“What?”, Laurent asked, confused.  
   
“What?”, Damen asked him back.  
   
“That’s it?”, he asked, still looking at Damen. “That’s all you’re going to ask?”  
   
Damen shrugged. “It’s all I want to know”.  
   
He marveled for a second about the fact he’d managed to leave Laurent speechless, he’d finally done it. Laurent didn’t say anything and Damen didn’t expect him to. Those two months with him as a roommate had at least taught him something: he only talked if he felt the need to do it. Otherwise he would always choose silence. He seemed to be better at observing people than talking to them, but that wasn’t quite true either, because when he talked to people, you were _convinced_ it was what he loved to do, it was as if he could read into your mind, see your deepest thoughts and find out how to entice you, how to tangle you, how to manipulate you, and all that he did by talking. He was that smart.  
   
Damen was about to fall asleep when he heard a whisper from the other side of the room, “thank you”.  
   
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “You’re welcome”, he replied, just as quietly.  
   
There was an awkward silence looming over them and Damen decided the best he could do was to break it. He took a deep breath. “Now please go to sleep soon or you’ll be cranky tomorrow and we have a long day ahead, _partner_ ”.  
   
He heard Laurent’s groan. “If you ever call me partner one more time I swear I will take your clothes to Lost and Found again”.  
   
“I take it you’re feeling better, then”.  
   
Laurent was silent for a long moment, then, “yes. Yes I am”, and it didn’t sound as much of a lie as the last time he’d said it.  
   
“I’m glad”.  
   
“Are you really?”, Laurent said, then he sighed and shuffled beneath the covers, “I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep, though”.  
   
Damen sighed. “ _Please_ try. I don’t want to deal with a sleepy you tomorrow”.  
   
“I barely sleep at night at all. Your snoring doesn’t allow me”.  
   
“So that explains why you are the way you are”.  
   
“I suppose”, Laurent said, but his voice had fallen a bit.  
   
Damen didn’t reply, suddenly feeling that he’d said something he shouldn’t had.  
   
About five minutes later, he heard the rustle of the covers moving and Laurent’s voice, “goodnight, idiot”.  
   
“Goodnight, _partner_ ”.  
   
“I’m going to kill you”.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the little delay, life got in the way, anyway, here is the next chapter, to make your monday brighter (or worse???) Thank you so much for your comments and kudos! Enjoy! x

As it turned out, Damen had been right. Laurent was _insufferable_ the next day.  
   
A part of Damen, the part that wasn’t focused on how little sleep he had actually gotten because of his roommate, and the one which was _not_ coming up with different plots to take him to the school’s garage while he slept and leave him there for the night, that other part of his brain, was actually excited about their excursion. At least he would get to breathe a different kind of air, and he liked sleeping on tents. Or so he thought, because he was certain that sharing a tent with Laurent would be…an experience. But he didn’t want to focus on that.  
   
Although it was harder and harder to avoid, especially when Laurent decidedly ignored Damen, didn’t reply to his questions and pretended he didn’t exist at all.  
   
Damen felt he was crawling out of his skin. And they hadn’t even left their room.  
   
Laurent’s bags beneath his eyes were certainly even more pronounced and he looked pale and tired. He spent longer than he usually did on the bathroom and because of that Damen had to take a two-minute-shower, otherwise they’d miss the bus. He packed the tent and his sleeping bag, but when he asked Laurent whether he’d packed his -or if he owned any at all- he was received with stone-cold silence.  
   
Crashing into that wall was worse this time. Because they’d talked the night before, they _had,_ and everything seemed to be better between the two of them, they’d broken the ice, the freezing, frigid ice that surrounded them since Laurent’s first day at school.  
   
And yet, they were back to silence.  
   
It wasn’t going to work out if Laurent chose to remain like this. Damen knew himself. He might be a nice person, nicer than he _should_ be, but he was an impulsive person as well, and he knew that one day he’d have enough and leave Laurent alone. Which was probably what Laurent was aiming for. Once again, he kept falling into his charade.  
   
If Laurent kept being like that, he was certain he would have enough during their excursion, and that would be awful, but Damen couldn’t care less about the consequences. If he snapped, he snapped. That was it.  
   
Thankfully, they made it to the bus right on time. Damen had to repress a sigh when he realized he would have to sit with Laurent during the three-hour-ride and chose to simply ignore him as well. Hopefully, he would get some sleep along the way and he would wake up being a less bitchy version of himself.  
   
He did not have such luck. As soon as they sat, Laurent took out a book and sank right into it, which was a very smart move, Damen thought, for it made it quite clear he wasn’t planning on pursuing meaningless chatter with him. Which was good, because Damen wasn’t planning on talking to him at all either way.  
   
About half an hour passed in silence and Damen chose to fall asleep because it was the most exciting thing to do and he hadn’t gotten enough sleep either. He was about to slip into a slumber when he felt a book hitting him on the shoulder. “Ouch!”, he said, opening his eyes. He turned to look at Laurent. “What the fuck?”, he asked.  
   
Laurent’s face was impassive. “I wanted to ask you something”, he told Damen, talking to him for the first time in the day.  
   
“What, what else do you want?”, Damen asked with exasperation.  
   
“I- erm. I simply wanted to ask you- not… not to tell anyone about what happened last night”, he said, avoiding Damen’s gaze.  
   
Damen’s mouth fell open.  
   
“-I know, I _know_ I have given you enough motives to use it against me. But please, don’t”.  
   
Damen blinked and shook his head. “I- I”, Laurent didn’t look at him and his voice had sounded small, vulnerable, more alike the Laurent who had wept last night and called for Auguste than like the Laurent who had kicked him out of the room. “I wouldn’t dream of that”, Damen replied with certainty.  
   
“Thank you”, Laurent said.  
   
“Although you probably shouldn’t ask me that after hitting me with a book to stop me from falling asleep, because you know, when someone stops me from falling asleep I’m capable of killing them with my bare hands”.  
   
Laurent smiled slightly. “Duly noted”. He then picked up his book and started reading once again, signaling that the conversation was over.  
   
Damen sighed and rubbed his eyes, he made himself comfortable and closed his eyes. He listened to some movement next to him and he lifted a finger, menacingly. “If you hit me with the book once again, I’ll find another pair to join and ask Guion to allow trios”, he said, seriously, his eyes still closed.  
   
He heard Laurent moving again and a sigh. “Fine”. Damen smiled, so Laurent was definitely going to hit him once again. Asshole.  
   
He didn’t even realize when he fell asleep, but when he opened his eyes they had arrived to their destination.  
   
*******  
   
Laurent was a paradox within himself. Standing there, amidst the cloudy sky and the leaves of autumn, his golden hair providing the only source of warmth in the middle of the cold weather, he seemed like he _belonged_ there and at the same time, he didn’t.  
   
He belonged there because he seemed like something only nature could be capable of creating. His eyes, his hair, his soft, pink lips mixed with the myriad of greens and browns and oranges to create a perfect palette of oils in the middle of the forest. He seemed like the only person who would fit _perfectly_ right there, in the middle of the wild, as if his hair attracted nightingales and his eyes mirrored the blue of a butterfly’s wings.  
   
And yet. The way he handled himself, the way he owned every place he walked into, the way he stood up to anyone and anything to get what he wanted made it seem like he belonged more to a palace than to a forest, like he should be commanding troops in foreign lands rather than going on an excursion with his classmates. He looked like he should be locked inside a castle built out of ice from where he could command. He had the mind of a leader.  
   
Someone was talking beside Damen. He realized a second later that it was Lazar, but his eyes had been so fixed on Laurent and his mind so determined to solve the puzzle that he hadn’t paid any mind to what he’d just said. “What?”, Damen said, finally able to tear his eyes apart from Laurent.  
   
Lazar smiled, a kind of smile that Damen couldn’t quite grasp the meaning to, for it seemed to convey a thousand different meanings at the same time. “You’re teaming up with the new kid, huh?”  
   
Damen sighed and nodded. “Yeah”.  
   
“Half of the school wants to bang him”, Lazar said, matter-of-factly.  
   
Of course, that wasn’t a secret for Damen, he’d heard the whispers around the hallways, the way everyone seemed too enticed by his looks but too intimidated by his stance to do anything about it.  
   
“Trust me, if they knew him, they wouldn’t”.  
   
Lazar raised his eyebrows. “So, you’re… _not?_ ”  
   
It took Damen a second to realize. His face immediately contorted in a grimace. “WHAT? No!, No, no, _no_ ”, he said, moving his arms around.  
   
Lazar smiled and shrugged. “Just figured you’d fallen for his charms, since you share the room and now you’ll share a tent-”  
   
“Because we _have_ to”, Damen said, emphatically. “If it was up to me, I’d stay as far away from him as I could”.  
   
Lazar eyed at Damen for a long moment before nodding unconvincingly. “I heard Torveld has a crush on him”.  
   
Damen drew in a face of disgust. “I truly wish him all the luck in the world”.  
   
*******  
  
What they had to do during the trip was actually quite a simple task: they’d had to find and classify different kinds of plants according to how long it took for their leaves to fall, determining which possible factors could contribute on it.  
   
Which sounded kind of interesting, except for the fact that Damen would have to spend most of his time walking around with Laurent and he honestly couldn’t care less about the plants. Biology was a topic he was not very interested in.  
   
Laurent seemed to be in a better mood after spending several hours in the bus without having to talk to Damen, and he was certainly more approachable when they had to build their tent. Damen had prepared himself to take all the load of their work, for Laurent seemed like he had never put a foot inside a forest before that day, which meant he probably knew next to nothing about building tents.  
   
As it turned out, and as it had happened more than once in the past two months, Laurent managed to surprise him. As soon as they started, Laurent took on the command and instructed Damen on which was the best way in which to build it. Damen, of course, had nothing left to do but to obey his commands and do all the physical part of the work. However, Laurent’s method proved to be quite effective -and Damen made himself memorize it for any future camping-, and in less than fifteen minutes, their tent was all set.  
   
Damen stared at him in wonder, a smile drawn in his face when Laurent stood in front of their tent, his arms crossed.  
   
“What? Thought I would have never stepped on a forest before? Think again”, and with that, he walked away.  
   
Laurent avoided him yet again during lunch and sat as far away from him as he could. Damen would find out, in surprise, that he spent most of lunch engaged in conversation with Jord and Aimeric, which didn’t make sense at all, for Laurent didn’t enjoy talking to people. Unless- unless he didn’t enjoy talking to Damen particularly, which shouldn’t have stung as much as it did.  
   
Damen chose to talk to Lazar then, who thankfully didn’t bring the topic of Laurent at all. It was a small relief, and it was nice to take a break from him in order to reload his share of patience, for he was certain he would definitely need it during their walks.  
   
But lunch was over too soon and he promptly found himself yet again next to Laurent, who barely talked to him at all. Guion gave them a small map of the forest, ordered them all to be back to the camp by five o’clock. Good. Three hours with Laurent lost in the woods, the perfect timing so he could kill Damen and get away with it.  
   
As soon as the whole group dispersed, Damen turned to look at Laurent, who had his attention fixed on the map. He did a little frown when he was thinking, or when he was immersed in a book, or when he was planning a retort, Damen had noticed. “Alright, so-”, Laurent started.  
   
“Oh so you _do_ talk, I was starting to get worried”, Damen felt the need to say.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “Are you really going to make this trip worse than it already is?”  
   
Damen sighed and crossed his arms. “Fine. Go on”.  
   
“We can head southeast, there’s a variety of trees over there, apparently”, and so he started to walk on, and Damen could do nothing but follow him.  
   
They walked in silence, Laurent always a couple of steps ahead of him, never waiting for Damen to catch up. Finally, after walking for an hour or so, Laurent nodded and stopped. Damen, who was right behind him, looked around. He didn’t seem to find anything different than the place where they’d set their tents at. Laurent crouched and took out his notebook. Damen walked around the place, not very impressed… _oh._  
  
“Wait. Those leaves… they’re still green!”, he shouted excitedly. Those were the first leaves they’d seen which were still completely green, amidst a sea of orange, right by the end of November. He knew there were other trees which remained green, but seeing them looking so _alive_ in the middle of a forest that seemed to be slowly aging and dying was like finding water in a desert.  
   
Laurent nodded. “That’s why I chose it”, he stood up and walked towards him.  He pushed his notebook against Damen’s chest. “And that’s why I’ll do the investigating and you’ll carry the samples, _partner_ ”. He walked a couple of steps ahead, “Now, do keep up”.  
   
Damen grabbed the notebook and took a deep breath. It would do them no good to fight right now, he told himself. _Just be patient and it’ll be over soon…_ But he couldn’t.  Throughout the day, he’d felt his patience getting thinner and thinner, unstoppable, unbearable. He felt he simply couldn’t get through all of it. It was a feeling that had just been growing during the last two months, a feeling which seemed to wane, every now and then, but then it came back stronger, intoxicating, invading all of his senses. It was a nagging feeling that had placed deep within himself since the moment he opened the door to his room and found an idiot with a hair of gold that had sent his bags to lost and found. And it never got better, no matter how much Damen wished it did, no matter how much he tried. He couldn’t, he couldn’t anymore.   
  
_Fuck it._  
  
He rushed to catch up to Laurent and grabbed him by the arm, turning him. Laurent’s eyes were stone cold, unmoving, reflecting no emotion at all whatsoever. He didn’t seem surprised, he looked like he’d been _expecting_ it, wanting it.  
   
“Listen, if you expect us to actually do some work you need to stop treating me like I’m your fucking slave. I didn’t ask to be paired with you. I didn’t ask to be your roommate. I didn’t _want_ any of this. If I bother you so much then fucking leave! It would be better than facing your silence, your annoyance, your tantrums and your nightmares, asshole”.  
   
He spat it all. He hadn’t expected to reveal so much, didn’t want to reveal so much, but once he started he couldn’t stop himself. He felt the need to let it all go. He wanted nothing more than to keep screaming at Laurent. It was something he’d waited two months for. He realized, a moment later, that he was panting, as if he’d just ran a lap across the football field.  
   
Laurent remained impassive.  
   
All he did was untangle himself from Damen’s grasp and stare at him, unperturbed. “Are you done?”, he asked quietly, his regal voice unmoving.  
   
Damen looked down and nodded.  
   
Laurent crossed his arms. “Good. Took you long enough”, and then he kept walking.  
   
“ _What?_ ”, Damen walked after him.  
   
“Was wondering when you’d finally snap and have enough. Figured it would be for the better”.  
   
“For the better?”, Damen’s anger was replaced by pure confusion.  
   
“Well yes, you’ve been accumulating all this hate for two months, it was only bound to find a way out and I expected it to happen soon, before we actually started our work together. Think of it as a reboot. You’ve let it out to create room for more”.  
   
“So you have _deliberately_ been an asshole today, then?”  
   
“You’re not so brute after all”, was all Laurent replied. “Although I was expecting you would figure it out sooner, and without my help”.  
   
“I don’t understand”, Damen whispered, but loud enough that Laurent could hear him. He turned and met Damen’s eyes.   
   
“What?”, he asked.  
   
“You”.  
   
Laurent took a step towards Damen. Then another. Then another. They were mere centimeters away. Damen was desperately trying to get his heart rate back under control.  
   
“It’s quite simple, actually. _Everything_ I do is deliberate”.  
   
“Everything?”  
   
Laurent shrugged. “What can I say? It’s the game I like”. He looked down and his gaze fixed on Damen’s lips for a fraction of a second, but enough for Damen to take two steps back intuitively, even more confused than he’d been before. Laurent smiled a humorless smile. “Now come”, Laurent said, turning back towards their path, “we have to gather some samples before it grows dark”.  
   
Damen stared after him, trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened, but try as he might, he truly couldn’t understand what the hell Laurent was doing. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. He could do nothing but follow.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little one was a bit of a shortie, but I promise you next chapter will be worth it. Thank you for reading, see you next week! :3


	6. Chapter 6

Damen hated the fact that Laurent had been right.  
   
His fit of anger had made things slightly… better? Or something like that. There was no ‘better’ when it came to Laurent.  
   
But he was at least more patient when dealing with him.  
   
And once the anger and the frustration vanished, he realized that they actually made quite a good team. Laurent, apparently, enjoyed the fieldwork. Or rather, he enjoyed creating strategies to take the best out of that field work.  
   
However, Damen wouldn’t give him the advantage, and he wanted to remain mad at him, so he chose to avoid talking to him whenever possible.  
   
And so they went through the afternoon, walking apart from each other, collecting a couple of samples and not talking to one another until they chose to go back to the camp.  
   
They were the first to arrive and Guion seemed mildly impressed by their work. The next day, he told them, they would have to find more samples and start classifying them, a task Damen found terribly boring.  
   
When everyone else arrived, they had dinner. Laurent engaged in small talk with some of the classmates and being surprisingly nice, or at least approachable, to them. Damen could tell he was in a slightly better mood than he’d been early in the morning and when he thought about it, it his mood had improved when they walked around in the wild. That thought surprised him. When the moment came to share a tent, he had to steel himself and take a deep breath before walking in. The tent was small and they barely fitted at all, for Damen’s complexion took most of it. However, Laurent had managed to find a spot where he was slightly comfortable in and their arms barely grazed one another below the heavy fabric of the sleeping bags. Laurent’s eyes were already closed.  
                                                                                                                      
“Lay a finger on me during the night and I’ll strangle you”, was the last thing Laurent said.  
   
Damen smiled, his gaze fixed on the blue of the fabric of the roof of the tent and the small, soft movement of the branches above them, the breeze soft and refreshing without being extremely cold.  
   
He realized, a couple of minutes later, that Laurent was breathing deeply and slowly and he sighed.  
   
He wished Laurent would wake up the next morning in a better mood, at least treating Damen with less animosity, because it was frankly turning exhausting.  
   
Sleep found him soon as well.  
   
******  
   
Laurent was certainly in a better mood the next morning. The ghosts that seemed to be haunting him and his every thought had seemed to vanish with the fog of the forest, for he looked less tense, more relaxed and more focused on the task at hand.  
   
In the afternoon, when the work in pairs came, he was not only in a better mood, he was in a talkative mood, which was surprising by itself.  
   
“What’s the name again?”, Damen asked Laurent.  
   
“ _Deciduous_ ”, Laurent said the word slowly, tasting it.  
   
“And those are the ones which die on Winter…”  
   
“Yes. A simple and stupid way to put it, but that’s how it works with you”, Laurent said, bitingly.  
   
Their walk had been filled by cold weather. The sky was cloudy and they’d had to put on two sweaters before walking out of their tents. There was a kind of fog among the trees that gave the forest an almost surreal look, but not necessarily a bad one. There was a certain mysticism behind it. The branches of the trees stood out in the middle of the gray and the white and the fog. The leaves crunched beneath their feet. Laurent’s hair shone brightly. It was the only golden spot in the middle of the cold Autumn. He looked like the perfect person for this kind of setting, with his almost mythological aura.  
   
Finding the trees which remained with their leaves intact was a more difficult task beneath the weather and the general atmosphere of the forest, but it was almost seductive in its setting. Finding the small spots of green seemed like a signal of life amidst death. They took each green tree they found like a personal victory.  
   
Laurent stopped abruptly, his eyes focused somewhere Damen couldn’t quite tell. He thought for a moment that his eyes must really stand out in the middle of the Winter, and so his skin. He looked like he was a creation of Winter itself.  
   
“I can see why Guion brought us here”, he said, out of nowhere. “He might not have the best teaching methods, but this forest was a good choice”.  
   
“Why?”, Damen asked, stopping and fixing his gaze on Laurent, who simply pointed towards a tree whose leaves remained completely green.  
   
“There is… a wide diversity of trees in here”. Damen looked at him at a loss.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “ _Cupressus sempervirens_ ”, he said with ease. “Mediterranean cypress. Very common in Iraq, Italy and Greece. _Extremely_ rare in the US, particularly in forests, for it is used mostly for decoration”. He sat down and Damen could do nothing but follow him. “I’ve always liked them and I try to find them whenever I can, but this is the first one I find in a forest in this country. They are very… _symbolic_ ”, he talked absentmindedly, like he wasn’t even realizing he was talking at all.  
   
“Symbolic?”, Damen asked, while he silently wondered which other places Laurent had been to. He seemed to know a huge deal about the world, a kind of knowledge that was only acquired with experience. His mind transported itself to the ever-present question of Laurent’s roots. Where was his family? What had happened? Who was Auguste? Why did he have a nightmare when he talked to his uncle? The enigma presented itself, once again. And with every experience he lived with him, it wasn’t as if he was aiming towards finding a solution, but rather as if he was seeing another side of the puzzle, which made it grow even more complex, of a bigger magnitude and difficulty than Damen expected.  
   
“Come away, come away, death, and in sad cypress let me be laid”, Laurent said softly.  
   
Damen stared at him in wonder, not quite understanding the reference.  
   
“Shakespeare”, Laurent replied with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. “They’re a symbol of death. It does not regenerate. When their branches are cut, it dies. That used to be interpreted as a symbol of the underworld, as a symbol of mourning, of grief, of darkness. But it also is associated with Hecate-”.  
   
“-The goddess of magic and witchcraft”, Damen completed Laurent’s sentence.  
   
Laurent turned to look at him and raised his eyebrows. Damen shrugged. “I’ve always liked Greek mythology”.  
   
“Didn’t expect it from you”, Laurent said, honestly.  
   
“You never expect much from me”, Damen replied, “and yet, I manage to surprise you every now and then”.  
   
Laurent stood up and kept walking. Damen joined him a couple of seconds later. “She’s also the goddess of _ghosts”_.  
   
Damen nodded.  
   
Laurent continued. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”, he asked Damen once he’d caught up to him. “Considered as symbols of death and yet they never perish beneath the wilderness of winter”.  
   
Damen smiled as he stood up in front of one of the cypresses and reached up to take one of its leaves, thinking that Laurent, too, wouldn’t perish beneath the winter. If anything, he could only merge with its beauty, just like the cypresses.  
   
 _Boreas. The god of the North Wind. The one which swallows the light. Capable of turning a whole landscape into ice with a single breath. With enough power to sink ships, to condemn a nation to complete starvation, to turn everything he touched into a perfect image of white beauty._  
   
Yes, maybe Laurent was a creation of winter itself, after all. Maybe even a relative, a descendant.   
   
When he grabbed the leaf, Laurent took it and examined it closely. “They’re usually planted by cemeteries. Helps- clean the air or something. But I’ve never believed that. I’ve always thought that they’re a symbol of life amidst death. A kind of life that doesn’t vanish, that never loses its color. The kind of life we’re taught to believe in once we die”.  
   
Damen stared at him in wonder. Laurent kept his eyes fixed on the leaves, his fingers softly tracing the path of the branch, but his head seemed fixed somewhere else, wandering in a thousand different thoughts, or memories, or dreams, or somewhere in between.  
   
Finally, Laurent blinked and shook his head. His eyes found Damen’s. “It’s all bullshit”.  
   
 _Capable of turning everything into ice with a single breath._  
   
The suddenness of the statement took Damen by surprise, as well as the way in which Laurent had said it, with a sharpness that hadn’t been in his voice before. Damen frowned.  
   
“The afterlife. Just a bunch of bullshit we force ourselves to believe so it makes losing someone more bearable. But they die. They vanish. Like the branches of the cypress when cut off. That’s it. They’re gone. There’s death and there’s darkness and that’s all there is. There are no _ghosts_ either, only the impressions of our nostalgia reproducing themselves in our brains”, and with that, Laurent left and kept walking around, leaving a speechless Damen walking behind him.  
   
After that, Laurent remained a little bit angry. It was not visible at plain sight, for he had a wonderful ability to hide his feelings, but it was there in the little details, in the way he talked, in the way he held himself, in the way he seemed to tense whenever they found another cypress along the road.  
   
Damen didn’t understand why, couldn’t give a reason, but he felt the need to pull him out of that gloomy mood.  
   
“Decidious”, he repeated slowly, his eyes fixed on Laurent. “Did I get that right?”  
   
Laurent _chuckled._ A kind of laugh Damen hadn’t heard since the time he’d asked him if he could get out of the bathroom after his nightmare. Damen smiled too. “Not even close, idiot”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “And why does it happen?”  
   
“Hm?”, Laurent asked, distracted.  
   
“Why do some leaves lose their leaves faster than others? And why some do not lose any at all?”  
   
Laurent focused on him once again. “Lots of factors. Mostly the composition of the leaves, their need for water and their endurance for cold weather. Trees literally absorb the nutrients from their leaves so they can keep them stored on their roots before winter approaches, now that their process of photosynthesis is affected by less daylight. Chlorophyll is one of the first process they stop, which is why they turn orange or red during Autumn. That depends on the pigment they produce, there’s the carotenoids -responsible for yellow, orange and brown leaves- or the anthocyanins -which turns the leaves purple or red. The evergreens have a special wax in their leaves that protects them from extreme weather conditions”.  
   
Damen looked up and fixed his eyes on the small movement of the green leaves. It was starting to get cold. “How did you learn all of that?”.  
   
“I used to love exploring forests and learning about plants. I loved reading about them. There is something so _mystical…_ and mythical about them. I like looking up and see the patterns the shadows of the leaves trace on their way to the sky, how the sun filters through them, the way they move along with the wind, so vulnerable but so… renewable. They always rise after Winter, always. They are-”, and then Laurent shut up, looked around, cleared his throat, realizing maybe he’d said too much and just kept walking.  
   
Damen followed him in awe. He looked at the evergreens and their silhouettes amidst the gray sky, but honestly, he just couldn’t see the appeal. There was something, though, in the way Laurent’s eyes had lit up when he said it, and he looked genuinely _happy,_ but it was an unusual kind of happiness, a paradox within itself, a happiness that ached to look for times forgotten, a kind of happiness which seemed tainted with something darker, with a kind of nostalgia that seemed to scar and ache and that seemed to strain that smile somehow. Darkness against light. Winter against Summer. Death against life. The perfect way, yet again, to describe Laurent deVere.  
   
Laurent stood straight and looked around. “It’s getting late. We should probably head back to the camp”.  
   
 _Don’t. Teach me more about them._ “Alright”.  
   
“Do you have all the samples we picked?”  
   
Damen looked at the Ziploc bag he’d had to hold through their whole walk. He’d had to hold them carefully, for the leaves could easily break. “Yes”.  
   
“Good. Let’s go”.  
   
 _No._ A part of Damen felt that if they did, the spell would be broken. It was the only way he could explain all they’ve talked to one another and how good they’d gotten along.  
   
******  
   
That night, Damen walked into an empty tent and he quickly made himself comfortable before Laurent arrived. While he did, he pondered on what had happened during the day. He clearly saw a side of Laurent he hadn’t seen before, and he couldn’t understand, couldn’t even begin to comprehend, because before his eyes, Laurent was turning into a more and more complex human being as time passed, and each time more and more variables appeared around him and the puzzle somehow seemed more unsolvable, yet more enticing.  
   
Damen was staring at the roof of the tent, at the small shadows the branches created over the tent with the wind, at the way in which they seemed to move in spiral, and if he followed them closely, he could almost see a whole Van Gogh painting drawing itself around it, around him. Amidst the darkness and the moon and the stars and the trees.  
   
When Laurent arrived, a couple of minutes later, he frowned. “You’ve taken all the space there is in the tent, you giant”.  
   
Damen’s eyes fixed on him immediately. The soft light coming from the bonfire they’d cooked their dinner on made a glowing halo out of his silhouette, and he seemed to merge with the spirals and the lights and the yellow and the orange and the night and the trees. Damen smiled. “I saved you some”.  
   
“Where? Over your lap?”, Laurent asked sarcastically.  
   
Damen raised an eyebrow, smugly, and he didn’t reply.  
   
“Oh, get over yourself”, Laurent told him before he walked into the tent and tried to find some space to get comfortable. Damen tried to cooperate as much as possible, but he truly was too big for such a small tent, and having gotten into the sleeping bag first had definitely _not_ been a good idea. For Laurent. For him, it was perfect.  
   
Laurent finally managed to fit and he looked up with a sigh. “You know, I used to have doubts about your level of intelligence before, but the fact that you actually spent money on a tent you can’t even fit into clarified all my questions”.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. “It was the only one available and when I got it, I wasn’t this _big._ Plus, I fit perfectly well, you, on the other hand, are the one who’s having problems to get comfortable”.  
   
He felt a kick on his shin. “Ouch!”.  
   
“I’m perfectly comfortable in here”, Laurent said.  
   
Damen turned to look at him, not daring to move. He felt the air leaving his lungs. Laurent’s glow was intermittent. Lit by the fire, invaded by darkness with every flicker of the flames outside their tent. And yet, his beauty was striking, blinding. Damen closed his eyes and remembered who he was, what he’d done to him, but it got harder and harder when all he could remember were random facts about the cypresses and glowing eyes which loved to see the patterns the leaves left whenever he looked to the sky. He wanted to close the distance. It wasn’t the kind of urge to kiss someone, no, it wasn’t that blinding sensation in which every rational thought was lost over pure and utter lust, it was an aching need to be _closer,_ to just feel a bit of his body warmth, to fix his eyes on the smaller details of his face, on the set of his jaw, on the way his pupils widened when he stared at the light for too long, on the small cupid bow over his lips. It was such an intimate need, so naïve, a need he couldn’t understand nor examine, but that was how he’d always felt about Laurent. He swallowed and forced his eyes to open again. When they did, he found Laurent’s gaze examining him, below the flickering light. Damen controlled his impulses.  
   
After a small pause, Laurent broke the silence. “I can’t imagine you as less than a giant rock”.  
   
“I used to be very small, before puberty hit. The tent was, actually, large enough for me and three other friends to fit in perfectly, and that included Nikandros”, he replied, trying to distract his mind from that striking feeling.  
   
“Nikandros? The other gigantic brute which looks at me with utter hatred whenever I insult you?”  
   
Damen nodded. “He has reasons to hate you. And yes, he was quite small, too”.  
   
“How old were you when you bought it?”, Laurent asked, with surprise.  
   
“11. It was my first camp with my friends”.  
   
“My first camp was when I was 10”, Laurent said, out of nowhere. “We went to the French Alps”.  
   
Damen remained completely silent. He was terrified of ruining the moment.  
   
Laurent didn’t seem to notice. He continued. “It was a lot of fun. So we kept doing it whenever we could, whenever we were near a forest. That’s how I got to know the cypresses, and all those facts about the trees. My brother taught me how to climb and how to build a fire, and I would just tell him different facts I learned about the trees, or some advices to survive in the forest. He would always listen attentively, even though he knew we wouldn’t use them at all”.  
   
Damen turned to look at Laurent, who kept his eyes on the ceiling. “And what happened?”  
   
“We can’t anymore”, was all Laurent said.  
   
Damen wanted to ask him more. He wanted to know more. He _ached_ for it. He didn’t. Instead, he said, “my brother was the one who taught me how to build a fire as well. And how to play football, actually”.  
   
“He used to study at our school”, Laurent told him, matter-of-factly.  
   
Damen nodded, wondering how Laurent knew that bit about his brother, and simultaneously feeling that crippling sensation invading him, that feeling he chose to ignore, that feeling that hit too close to home. He remembered all he’d lived with Kastor, _before._ He missed him. And now that Laurent talked about his own brother with such love and ease, Damen felt the stinging ache once again. He’d loved Jokaste, or he thought he’d had, but they had been together for a year. He’d spent his whole life with his brother.  
   
Laurent didn’t ask him any questions, perhaps sensing that Damen wouldn’t want to answer them.  
   
They were silent. Damen broke it a couple of minutes later. “I’ve learnt more from you today than I’ve had sharing rooms for two months”.  
   
Laurent shrugged. “I suppose”, he started, turning to look at Damen, “I manage to surprise you every now and then”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to clarify: I know next to nothing about trees nor about biology, I did some research on it for this fic but I'm definitely not an expert, so I apologize for any mistakes I might have made when talking about trees. Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for reading! x


	7. Chapter 7

They spent the last day of their school trip doing nothing, mostly because they’d picked up all the leaves they’d managed to, -which, Damen thought, were half of the forest, thanks to Laurent, who thought every single fucking leave they found along the way was interesting enough to study-, and just picking up the tent, packing, and ignoring each other.  
   
Early on the day, Laurent had sat on the other side of the camp talking to Jord and to Torveld, while the latter kept sneaking glances at Laurent and smiling. Damen, meanwhile, had to clean the dishes, because he had been the last one to wake up in the morning, finding the tent empty and Laurent already dressed, ready and laughing at seeing Damen’s sleepy expression as he came out, sleep-muddled and confused, and terribly _late,_ to find a very angry professor Guion and a bunch of stupid classmates laughing at him.  
   
Truth was, he’d had a wonderful night. He’d slept better than the night before and at some point throughout the night he woke up to find that Laurent had moved his sleeping bag slightly closer to his own and so he could feel his arm through all those layers of fabric. It was quite an effective way to share their body heat and it allowed them both to sleep better. The previous day had taken a toll on him and yet, by the time he fell asleep, he felt extremely satisfied at what he’d shared with Laurent. He felt he had seen a different side of him, one he felt an urging need to discover, to uncover, to understand, to comprehend.  
   
And yet, the next morning, the universe had recovered itself from the chaos that meant Laurent actually portraying himself as a human being and promptly restored everything to its righteous and natural state.  
   
“You’re an asshole”, he told Laurent when they finished having lunch. Damen had already started cleaning the dishes.  
   
“You say it as if it is a surprise”, Laurent said with a smirk. “You should be used to it by now”.  
   
“I should have kicked your ass by now”, he replied.  
   
“It would be quite predictable coming from you, brute, don’t you think?”  
   
“Maybe. But that wouldn’t diminish the satisfaction I’d feel once you’re in the ground with the teeth knocked off your face”, Damen replied, with a fake smile.  
   
“Would love to see you do it. It probably would give me the opportunity I’ve been waiting for to get you expelled”.  
   
“So you can have the room?”  
   
“So I don’t have to see your face nor endure your pointless, mindless chattering at night, yes. One would think I deserve a single after all you’ve put me through, don’t you think?”, Laurent replied. “Now get to cleaning, _partner_ ”, he said as he pushed his plate towards Damen’s hands, who barely managed to grab it before it slipped.  
   
“You’re going to pay for this, _partner_ ”, Damen replied, feeling angry and frustrated. What the hell had happened? The day before they had been… more civilized with one another, and Damen had even considered the possibility of them maybe becoming…friends, or at least acquaintances, but no, Laurent was still intent on making his life a living hell for no reason at all.  
   
While he washed, he heard a high-pitched laugh he couldn’t quite recognize at plain sight, but then he realized, it had been Laurent’s. He’d just laughed at something Torveld had said, and he looked at ease and comfortable sitting with his new… _friends._ Damen felt an inexplicable anger rushing through him all at once, but he decided to swallow it down. Maybe he would never cross Laurent’s walls, maybe he was never meant to. Maybe doing it would unleash utter and complete chaos over the universe. Maybe he would just have to accept that and move on.  
   
And he would.  
   
But that didn’t mean that he actually wanted to.  
   
******  
  
They came back to the school late at night, both of them exhausted and smelly and carrying bags that were far-too-big and heavy.  
   
Damen opened the door to their room and Laurent pushed him so he could enter first -which was more effective than it should have been because he’d taken him by surprise-. He walked in behind him with a sigh.  
   
Damen had refused to share a seat with Laurent on the ride back on the bus, asking Lazar instead if he could sit with him and Ancel, not even caring if Guion would reprimand him for that, for it had been punishment enough having to clean the dishes. Laurent, on the other hand, had chosen to sit with Torveld and they spent their whole trip back talking about a bunch of different things. Damen tried desperately not to pay them any mind but by the end of the trip he felt he was about to crawl out of his skin.  
   
Laurent didn’t make any sense. Damen had tried through any possible way to make their experience more amenable and for a couple of hours he thought it had worked after all, they had even shared camp stories to one another, but then Laurent was back to being his usual self and that inconsistency was driving him crazy. And now he just _chose_ to make friends? He supposed that the answer was quite clear, then: the problem wasn’t Laurent, it was Damen, and so he would officially stop trying and get out of the way. If Laurent preferred to ignore each other while making their existences unbearable, then so be it. He would play the game as well.  
   
He pointedly ignored him as they laid their bags, then he took a shower and as soon as he was dressed, he left again, not feeling like facing Laurent anymore.  
   
A couple of minutes later, he found himself in front of the door to Nik’s room. He knocked and Nik opened, welcoming him with a hug. “You smell”, Nik told him as soon as they broke apart.  
   
“I need a coffee”, was all Damen replied.  
   
“I hate him”, Damen said as soon as they sat at the cafeteria with a couple of lattes in their hands.  
   
Nik rubbed his forehead, “please tell me nothing happened between the two of you”.  
   
Damen groaned. “Of course nothing happened!”, he said, offended.  
   
“And that’s what’s bothering you?”  
   
“No, Nik!”, he said. “I just- I have to share rooms with him and do this project with him and I just can’t stand him anymore!”  
   
“So kick his ass”, Nik replied, simply.  
   
“I can’t do that. That’s what he wants”.  
   
“Then don’t fall into his trap”.  
   
“I’m trying to, but it’s getting harder and harder, he just, he makes me want to punch him and scream, I- he made me wash the dishes of the entire camp!”, he said helplessly.  
   
Nik burst into laughter. Damen slapped him in the shoulder. “He _is_ evil, isn’t he?”  
   
“Shut up, this is serious”.  
   
“Damen, you should get used to it by now. Just ignore him, pretend he doesn’t exist. Pretend you’re still getting your single and don’t even throw a glance at him. If I were you, I would have threatened him already, though. He wouldn’t have a chance with a giant like you”.  
   
“Nah, I would kill him too easily. I’d like to make him suffer instead”.  
   
“Then don’t pay him any mind. You’re the MVP of the football team, so stop goading around over some asshole and rejoice in your popularity. I’ve seen the way some girls are looking at you, I bet all you’re missing is just some good, old fashioned night of fucking”.  
   
Damen sighed. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right”.  
   
Nik smiled. Damen looked at him with a frown. “What?”, Damen asked.  
   
“It’s been a long while since you last talked about Jokaste”.  
   
“Yeah, well, I just found myself a worse kind of demon”.  
   
“-or a better distraction”, Nik replied.  
   
*******  
   
He came back to find Laurent rummaging through _his_ suitcase, tossing his clothes and his sleeping bag aside.  
   
And god, how much Damen wished he didn’t have to talk to him at the moment, but he couldn’t not to. “What the _hell_ are you doing?”  
   
“Where the _fuck_ are the leaves of the _Lonicera Sempervirens?_ ”, Laurent asked, angrily.  
   
“The _what_ of the _what_?”  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “The trumpet honeysuckle”, his voice getting louder, “another one of the evergreens”.  
   
“I don’t know, they must be somewhere around”.  
   
Laurent kept rummaging through his bag.  
   
“Hey!”, Damen said, walking towards him. “Hey!”, he called once again, “stop going through my stuff, asshole”, he pushed Laurent, just using the strength necessary to make him move, but not to hurt him.  
   
Laurent stared at Damen with shocked eyes. He was angry. So was Damen.  
   
“They are _not_ in the Ziploc bags”.  
   
“I _don’t_ care”.  
   
“You fucking lost them”, Laurent said, putting his hands on his hips.  
   
Damen raised an eyebrow.  
   
“You _fucking_ lost the leaves”, he repeated incredulously.  
   
“It’s just one tree, calm down”.  
   
“Those fucking bags were your only responsibility throughout the trip and you can’t even do that right, brute!”  
   
“And what was your responsibility? To boss me around? To insult me? To flirt with Torveld? Let me tell you, you didn’t do a great job at either of those”.  
   
They were yelling at each other by that point. Damen felt his blood rushing through his body, flowing faster and faster. He wanted to punch Laurent, wanted to shut him up, wanted to-  
   
He didn’t want to do any of those things, actually.  
   
But he couldn’t care less at the moment.  
   
Laurent ignored Damen’s last remark. “Got you to wash the dishes, didn’t I?”, he took a step towards Damen.  
   
Damen clenched his fists. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself.  
   
Laurent took another step closer.  
   
“ _Fuck_ you. And your _fucking_ trees”, Damen said without even thinking. “Nobody gives a fuck about those leaves. But of course you would, of course you would. If you care so much about them, you should have carried them yourself”.  
   
Laurent’s expression cleared, and was immediately replaced by an impassive look that made him terribly intimidating, and which made Damen flinch. He could clearly see how Laurent built back every single wall he covered himself with. He hated that. Laurent crossed his arms. “I thought a menial task which demanded small brain activity would suit you just enough. I was certainly mistaken. I overestimated you”.  
   
Damen laughed, taking another step forward. “I think you overestimate yourself. And I think you overestimate my patience”.  
   
“Actually no, I’ve been waiting for that punch for two months, so why don’t you go ahead and _do it,_ coward?”  
   
Damen took another step forward. He was close enough he could actually see the way Laurent’s eyes darkened in fear, in expectation, or something in-between. He could see the way his nostrils flared slightly as he breathed, the only visible sign of his anger. He could see the vein in his neck throbbing fast. Damen steeled himself. The impulse to do it was hypnotizing him.  
   
Laurent took another step forward. “I’m waiting”, he whispered, because Damen was close enough to hear him.  
   
Damen clenched his jaw. He blinked and dragged a deep breath. Then, in the same voice tone Laurent had used, he slowly said, “I’m not going to punch you”.  
   
Laurent’s eyes flickered for a moment in a way that would have been unnoticeable for Damen had he not been standing so close to him. Damen frowned. Laurent tensed, clearly disliking the fact Damen had seen that small glimpse of human emotion. Damen wanted to smile with satisfaction at the fact he’d managed to surprise Laurent. However, the satisfaction vanished an instant later, when Laurent returned to his impassive and unimpressed expression, only to say, dead-stone cold, “you _are_ disappointing”.  
   
Damen stared at him with an eyebrow raised.  
   
“You’re so predictable you’re borderline boring. If you’d been wondering why I refuse to talk to you whenever we’re in this room it’s because you make me want to be dead. Simple as that”.  
   
Damen didn’t allow any expression to show from his face. They were silent for a moment, simply staring at one another. Laurent continued.  
   
“Want me to draw it to you so you can understand it? Want me to explain it with simpler words?”  
   
Damen dragged a deep breath. A second later, he laughed, a humorless laugh. “You know what?”, he started, and he could tell Laurent’s interest was piqued. “You don’t even deserve it”.  
   
“Deserve what?”, Laurent asked.  
   
There was an interesting way in which Laurent fought. He did not only do it with his words, which, admittedly, were harsh enough to bruise, to hurt deeply, to fragment, to scar, to destroy, but he brought his whole physicality with it. The way he stood, the way his chin was pointedly up, the way his eyebrows lifted and yet the rest of his face remained completely impassive was a clear message towards his opponent: I’m better than you. And Damen knew it, could see it plainly. He didn’t yield to it. Yet, he _knew_ how to read Damen. He did. That was the only way in which Damen could explain the seductive tone with which Laurent addressed him whenever he dared him to react in the way Laurent expected him to. It was the only way to explain the rising tension in the room, right there, in the small space separating them. It was the only way to explain the way Laurent’s eyes fixed on Damen’s lips for a fraction of a second. That was another one of his cards. Damen was surprised by it, but held his ground as best as he could. He wouldn’t look at Laurent’s lips, he _wouldn’t._ The impulse was even bigger than the one that almost made him punch him. He didn’t fall for it. But god, he _wanted_ to. They were staring at each other with a kind of intensity that conveyed much more than mere anger. Damen took another step forward, daringly, their noses were almost touching. When he spoke, he forced himself to sound as cold as Laurent did.  
   
“My attention. My punches. This conversation”.  
   
Laurent looked down again and Damen felt all the air leaving the room. A thought invaded his mind out of nowhere: _close the space._ He looked down. Laurent’s lips were sore and dry, and yet they hadn’t lost that pink color that brought life to his passive, winter-cold face. Laurent, either self-consciously or not, licked them, just a little bit.  
   
The impulse was blinding.  
   
Damen wanted to punch him.  
   
But no, he didn’t. He wanted _more._ And the frustration that invaded him made him feel an urging need to get rid of the tension by punching something, anything, until he was exhausted, until he couldn’t _think,_ until all he could hear was the ringing in his ears instead of Laurent’s short breaths that Damen could almost _feel_ due to their proximity.  
   
He was in dangerous territory. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up punching Laurent or kissing him senselessly.  
   
And neither option could end well. He knew that much.  
   
So, without taking his eyes off Laurent’s lips, he did the only thing that made sense to him at the moment.  
   
He walked out of the room and shut the door loudly behind him.  
   
*******  
   
After that, he ran.  
   
He just took to the Football field and ran.  
   
And ran until he couldn’t feel anything but the soreness in his muscles and the deep, satisfying pain of exertion. He ran until he couldn’t listen to Laurent’s breathing and until his lungs ached for air, he ran until his muddled mind had forgotten the words that had been spitted, he ran until he could no longer feel the push towards Laurent’s lips as if it was a magnet. He ran until he didn’t have to think. Until the tiredness was more than the desire to figure the pieces of the puzzle. And yet, he realized while he ran, this time it wasn’t the puzzle of Laurent’s mind he desired to solve. This time it was the puzzle of himself.  
   
He sat on the grass and simply looked up until the sky filled with little starts that drew themselves whenever he stared at them. He’d once learned that the longer he stared at the sky, the more stars would appear.  
   
Time vanished and he could hear nothing but his breathing.  
   
When he checked his clock, it was one in the morning.  
   
He stood up, feeling the strain in his muscles, and returned to their room.  
   
The desire to punch him was gone. So was that impulse to kiss him. At the moment he just wanted to yell at him, or never had known him at all.  
   
Laurent was deep asleep. His face impassive and calm.  
   
Damen sat on the edge of his own bed and rubbed his eyes. He was feeling the beginnings of a headache. He went to the shower and when he came back to his bed, sleep eluded him. He wanted to laugh. This _had_ been a long day. It felt like it had been days since he’d had to wash the dishes of the rest of the classroom. It felt like it had been months since Laurent shared with him that he used to love camping with his brother.  
   
In the middle of the silence, he realized that Laurent’s breathing wasn’t that of someone who was deep asleep. He was probably faking it and couldn’t sleep, just like Damen.  
   
He’d had enough of this. He was exhausted of playing around. At first, he’d rolled on with it because it was an efficient way to get Jokaste off his mind, but at what cost? In the end he only ended up with another enemy and an aching sensation of all that had been lost. It felt like a wasted opportunity, but he’d done everything he could in order to uncover the enigma of Laurent, and after two months he still crashed against the same carefully constructed and stone-cold wall, and he hated that. It frustrated him endlessly.  
   
*******  
   
“So what are you going to do now?”, Pallas asked Damen over lunch after he’d told him, Nik and Erasmus about what had happened with Laurent the night before, with some exceptions, of course.  
   
Damen shrugged. “I suppose I’ll have to find another partner for the project, look if I can work with someone else or do it myself. Guess I’d have to beg Guion for it, I don’t know”, he rubbed his temple. After a long night in which sleep was mostly elusive, he woke up to find Laurent was already gone, which was both a relief and a disappointment, for Damen couldn’t help but wonder if Laurent would request a change of bedroom, a thought that didn’t excite Damen much.  
   
“You should get your revenge”, Nik told him, once again.  
   
“I’m done with playing his fucking little game. He’s an asshole, I don’t plan to feed on his ego”. And truth was, that just wasn’t the way he did things. Laurent was calculating and methodic, carefully planning the outcome of every move he made. Damen hated that approach. He was direct and impulsive. He acted on mere instinct and that was it.  
   
“So you’ll just keep sharing rooms with him?”  
   
“If he wants the fucking single, he would have to murder me”, Damen replied.  
   
“Seems like he’s capable of doing it”, Erasmus told him, with his eyebrows raised.  
   
Nik nodded. “Slowly and painfully, for certain”.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. “I could render him unconscious with one hand”.  
   
“Yeah but you’d probably get lost in his eyes or something and be unable to react”, Nik said, stifling a laugh.  
   
Damen kicked him.  
   
“Oh no”, Pallas said, widening his eyes as Nik’s words settled, “we don’t want another Jokaste again”,  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. “That’s _not_ going to happen”.  
   
Erasmus was contemplating him quietly. “Now that I think about it… he _does_ look like Jokaste”.  
   
“He does not”, Damen replied, defensively. “I, well… just… would you just shut up?”  
   
Pallas touched his shoulder. “Damen, my man, all I’ll say is this: don’t think with your penis”.  
   
“I think that’s all Damen is capable of thinking with”, Nik said.  
   
Damen glared at Pallas. “How’s Lazar, by the way?”  
   
Pallas turned murderous eyes at him. Damen smiled.  
   
Nikandros’ mouth opened in surprise. “Hold your balls”, he started. “Pallas, do you have a crush on Lazar?”  
   
Pallas blushed but didn’t keep his eyes off Damen, not bothering to reply.  
   
Nik and Erasmus’ shock was enough to divert the conversation from anything related to Laurent, which was precisely what Damen was aiming for. They bombarded Pallas with questions, asking him when that had happened and why he hadn’t told them. Pallas kept throwing killing gazes at Damen every now and then. At least during breakfast, he wouldn’t have to think of Laurent again.  
   
*******  
   
Damen didn’t go back to his bedroom through the entire day, focusing instead on his classes and on football practice. As it turned out, Govart’s heel was slightly better and he was still the team captain, a thought which didn’t thrill Damen much, for he was an abusive, rude and egocentric asshole.  
   
By the time he got back to their bedroom, he was feeling the kind of exertion that did not only drained your body physically, but mentally. It was a feeling like all your defenses were low and there was no way to bring them back, for all your senses and your brain were aching to get some sleep.  
   
And Damen tried to avoid feeling _that_ kind of exertion as much as he could, because when he didn’t, the thoughts of Kastor and Jokaste invaded him once again, and when every wall in his fortress was vanishing, he could do nothing but hold onto them and wish that they’d be gone when he’d wake up.  
   
And he would have to add to the mix that he was arriving to the bedroom with all his defenses lowered to find Laurent.  
   
Which, by itself, made everything worse.  
   
He dragged a deep breath before entering the room. When he was about to, he thought about all the times he’d had to mentally prepare himself to face Laurent. That wasn’t supposed to happen. That thought only increased his anger and his frustration against his roommate.  
   
He opened the door and found his bedroom empty.  
   
It was stark clean. For a second, Damen’s eyes widened in barely concealed panic at the thought Laurent had finally snapped and moved to another room, which shouldn’t bother him as much as it did. But later, his senses came back to him and he realized that Laurent’s books were still stacked on his desk, and that there still was that little lion pin he kept on his bedside table and which was always the last thing he stared at before turning off the lamp every night.  
   
He sat on his bed with a sigh of relief.  
   
Laurent hadn’t left.  
   
Not yet.  
   
He looked around his bed when a small item caught his eye. It certainly hadn’t been there the night before. Damen frowned.  
   
And then he recognized the Ziploc bag and the little leaves and flowers it contained, still green, still red, looking exceptionally alive in the middle of the winter and after being ripped from their stems. Still green, still red, still exceptionally alive amidst the pale blue of the walls.  
   
Laurent had found the leaves he’d given Damen hell for.  
   
Damen smiled. But he also wanted to punch him.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM sorry but things will get better very, very soon, promise <3 (this is a hate to lovers fic after all!) hope you enjoyed it :3 lots of love to you all x


	8. Chapter 8

They didn’t talk to each other for the next week. And it was driving Damen mad. And as he fidgeted and struggled to keep to his promise, he couldn’t help but wonder how Laurent managed to do it so easily. For Laurent, it was as if Damen didn’t exist, as if the room he walked into was completely empty, as if his life had never been crossed by a small tangent he found along the way. For Damen, it was the complete opposite. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t _think_ whenever Laurent was in the room. The silence was deafening, the awkwardness of the whole situation somehow made the air heavier, and the entire environment of their room felt _wrong_ from the moment they walked into it.  
   
Damen already knew that this was a battle of wits. And if he was honest with himself, he knew this was a battle he was bound to lose.  
   
For he was certain he would reach a tipping point. And that tipping point drew closer and closer as time passed.  
   
They ignored each other during their classes and Damen even started working on the project by himself.  
   
The problem was that once the initial anger and frustration and the need to punch someone were gone, once he could think with a cold head, or as cold as he could manage, he realized of the absolute pointlessness of their fight, of their rivalry in general. And yet, he wouldn’t yield. He felt that with every single move and every decision he took, he was being tested. He felt that Laurent never acknowledged him, and yet he _observed_ him, he studied him, his every movement, his every choice.  
   
Anything was better than this. But there was no other possibility. There was no longer a ‘better’ or a ‘worse’. There was only Laurent.  
   
And he didn’t know if that was better or worse.  
   
And then, Laurent got himself into a goddamn fight.  
   
*******  
   
The last match before the holidays had been a success: Damen had aced it. He felt the passion running through him, the adrenaline, the need to just keep on and never stop. And the whistle of a blow and the lights and the cheers, and a touchdown and another, and another. And they kicked the other school’s ass.  
   
And Damen was on top.  
   
After that, they celebrated.  
   
They celebrated until Damen couldn’t remember his name and until Nikandros couldn’t hold himself up any longer. And Damen felt content enough. He’d kissed a girl… or two… or something along those numbers, everything was a blur at the moment.  
   
It hadn’t been the best match for Govart, who decided he wasn’t in the mood to celebrate, which made everything even better.   
   
And Damen should have realized.  
   
But he didn’t.  
   
And so, when he arrived to his bedroom, a bit after 3 a.m., he couldn’t even tell the difference, because for once, he’d managed to achieve what he’d ached to achieve since he met Laurent deVere: he managed to not acknowledge his existence. He didn’t even realize, the thought didn’t cross his mind, for his mind was tainted with images of lips meeting and smiles being shared and small bites and sharing air in an intimate embrace, a fleeting caress, a passing gesture.  
   
And the fixed point in which the tangent of Laurent had somehow managed to become a swirl spiraling around his life seemed to be a bit more blurry. And he didn’t even remember he existed that night. Not at that moment. Or he chose not to.  
   
Otherwise, he might have managed to realize that Laurent wasn’t there that night.  
   
But he didn’t.  
   
He woke up to an ugly headache, and maybe he should have noticed something was wrong when he wasn’t woken up by a pillow hitting him in the head at six in the morning, but the headache was too intense for him to even worry.  
   
He opened his eyes. The light coming through the room was blinding, and he stood up with a groan. He couldn’t remember much of the night before, but he knew he’d had a great time. He smiled. And then he looked around, but Laurent was not in their room.  
   
Not that he should care much about it, for they were barely in the room at the same time, but still, it wouldn’t have been entirely unpleasant to have woken up to the sound of Laurent’s laughter at Damen’s state. He unconsciously smiled at the memory, without even realizing he’d had, but the smile vanished when he realized it would probably never happen again. Their relationship was far too strained at this point.  
   
He walked with wobbly legs and took a shower, then he spent the rest of the day with Nik and Pallas, who were positively glowing with excitement about their match, despite the consequences of their celebration.  
   
Jord and Lazar sat next to them when lunchtime started, which was a bit weird, since they barely talked to each other. Damen supposed maybe Jord was getting along with Nik and he certainly wouldn’t complain about the fact Lazar was sitting right in front of Pallas, who couldn’t hide his blush on time.  
   
“Damen, how’s Laurent?”, Jord asked out of nowhere, without a greeting, looking serious.  
   
Damen sighed. “Bitching, probably”.  
   
“What?”  
   
“Don’t know”, Damen shrugged, “haven’t seen him all day. And I couldn’t care less”, he said, more bitterly than he should have and Nik knew it, for the look he threw at him.  
   
Jord blinked. “Wait, what?”, he asked.  
   
“What?”, Damen asked, confused.  
   
“You don’t know what happened?”  
   
Damen’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean what happened?”  
   
“You haven’t heard?”, Lazar asked, in disbelief.  
   
“Heard what? What the hell are you talking about?”  
   
“Laurent had a fight yesterday, with Govart”.  
   
“ _What?_ ”, Nik said loudly. A second later, he laughed in disbelief. “He had a _what?,_ with _who?_ ”  
   
Jord didn’t smile back and threw Nik a serious look. Nik’s smile vanished.  
   
“Yeah, Govart was suspended”, Lazar said.  
   
“When did that happen? He was at the match last night-”, Pallas asked.  
   
Lazar fixed his attention on Pallas, “right after the match and-”.  
   
“What happened to Laurent?”, Damen couldn’t help but ask.  
   
He could _feel_ Nik’s eyes rolling.  
   
“He was beaten up, _badly._ Wait, he wasn’t brought back to your bedroom? I’d assumed that-”  
   
Damen stood up. “No”. He felt worry invading him. Laurent was an asshole and he was capable of defeating anyone but Govart was… a giant, and a true brute, someone who never measured the possible consequences of his actions, if Laurent had slipped for a single moment, Govart would have taken advantage of it and Laurent had no way out of it. It was probably what had happened. But it didn’t make sense. Laurent didn’t seem like the kind of person who got involved into fights. He _provoked_ them, and then he retired and watched hell unfold, he never took part of them.  
   
That was all he said.  
   
A moment later, without being able to explain how or why, he was running towards the infirmary, as fast as he could.  
   
After begging the doctor to allow him to get in and see how Laurent was doing, he found him asleep in one of the gurneys. There were a couple of bruises on his face and a bruised eye, but nothing too serious. And yet, he managed to look surprisingly vulnerable, in a way Damen hadn’t seen since Laurent’s last nightmare, but this was different somehow.  
   
He dragged a deep breath.  
   
“He didn’t look good when he was brought here”, the doctor, Halvik, told him.  
   
“Is he going to be okay?”, he couldn’t help but ask.  
   
Halvik smiled, “yes, yes he will. He needs rest though. And he must avoid stretching his muscles until the soreness heals. I already told him, he won’t attend school for the next two weeks. He was kicked in the stomach and he needs medicines and rest for that injury to heal”.  
   
“Will someone pick him up, then?”, Damen asked lowly, feeling very curious.  
   
She shook her head. “He didn’t want to. He’ll stay in his room. His family, however, has been contacted”.  
   
“Is he in trouble?”  
   
“Not that I know of”.  
   
Damen nodded and sat in a chair in front of Laurent. “Can I stay here for a while?”  
   
Halvik’s smile was still firmly in place, a kind of calming, reassuring smile. “Of course. Are you his…friend?”  
   
_No. I’m his roommate who almost murdered him a week ago and who is still trying to figure out why I even bother to take care of him._  
   
Damen only managed a nod, knowing quite well that if Laurent was awake, he would have given him hell for it.  
   
“Alright. I’ll leave you two alone. Call me if you need anything”.  
   
Damen smiled. “Thank you”.  
   
He didn’t want Laurent to wake up to find him staring at him like an idiot, so he chose to look at his phone while the idiot came back to consciousness. He groaned when he saw he had a text from Nikandros.  
   
 Sent [2:20 p.m.]  
_So… how’s Laurent?_  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. He could almost see Nik’s disappointed expression.  
   
Sent [2:26 p.m.]  
**Asleep. But he’s fine.**  
  
Sent [2:27 p.m.]  
_You know what I’m going to say about that, don’t you?_  
  
Sent [2:28 p.m.]  
**I’d rather you didn’t.**  
  
Sent [2:29 p.m.]  
_I won’t, then. But we both know it. Since when do you care so much about him?_  
  
Sent [2:29 p.m.]  
**I don’t. I simply don’t want my roommate to be murdered. If I’m going to beat him, I’ll do it fairly: when he’s in a good state, not in a vegetative one.**  
  
Sent [2:29 p.m.]  
_*eyeroll emoji* …always so dramatic._  
  
Sent [2:30 p.m.]  
_Let me know if he punches you when he wakes up._  
  
Damen smiled and ignored that last text. When he looked up from his phone, he realized Laurent was beginning to stir, his mouth producing a low groan which came out of him unconsciously as soon as he moved. He opened one of his eyes. His eyebrows rose. “Damianos?”, he asked, his voice weak.  
   
Damen nodded and stood up. “What the hell happened to you?”, he asked.  
   
Laurent shrugged. “If you think this looks bad, you should see Govart”, he said seriously, defensively and almost defiantly.  
   
Damen smiled a bit. “I can’t. He was suspended”.  
   
Laurent looked at Damen with a fierce smile. Damen realized, almost immediately, that that had been Laurent’s plan all along. “Wait. Did you want _him_ suspended?”, Damen asked.  
   
Laurent ignored the question and tried to sit up, doing his best to hide his grimace of pain, but not quite managing it. Damen moved closer and grabbed his shoulder, pushing him back on the bed. “No, no, no”.  
   
Laurent frowned and turned to look at the hand in his shoulder with a murderous glare, causing Damen to draw his hand back immediately, feeling slightly awkward.  
   
He cleared his throat. “You need to rest”.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “I’m _fine_ ”, he said, sharply, looking like he was about to snap at Damen.  
   
Damen sat back on his chair, knowing that putting a distance from Laurent was the wisest choice in order to avoid his anger. “No, you’re not. I can tell by your face”.  
   
Laurent drew in a breath and was about to say something when Damen stopped him by raising a hand. “I won’t listen to any excuse. Less of all, coming from you. Now shut up and rest”.  
   
“Are you going to stay here?”  
   
“Just until I make sure you’re done being stubborn”.  
   
“I doubt that will happen”.  
   
“I’m quite used to your methods”, Damen replied, at ease.  
   
“I thought you were angry”.  
   
“What makes you think I’m not?”  
   
“Did you poison me?”, Laurent asked, half-serious, half-joking.  
   
“I’m not you”.  
   
“I wouldn’t do that. It would be far too predictable”.  
   
“Not predictable to me”.  
   
“That’s because you trust everybody. Which is quite idiotic, to be honest. No, if I were to murder you, I would hire someone to do it for me. Don’t like getting my hands dirty. Plus, poison kills too fast. I’d like to see you suffer. I’d sit in front of you and stare as every trace of life leaves your face, slowly, painfully slowly. Maybe I’d use another toxic agent, one of those which aren’t recognizable at plain sight”.  
   
Trust Laurent to tell a story of how he’d kill Damen with such confidence, coldness and ease, as if he was talking about the weather.  
   
“If I killed you, I’d strangle you”, Damen replied.  
   
Laurent fixed his eyes on him. “Oh?”, he asked.  
   
Damen nodded. “Yeah. I would not care about a painful death. I wouldn’t prolong your suffering, no, because I know you’d talk your way out of it. So the first thing I’d do was to stop you from talking at all. Also, I would like to see your eyes staring directly at me”.  
   
Laurent laughed. “Of course you would”.  
   
“Predictable?”, Damen asked.  
   
“Very much so”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “I suppose”.  
   
Halvik chose that moment to walk into the room, looking at Laurent. “You’re up”, she said, “how are you feeling?”  
   
Laurent smiled at her charmingly. “Good. Better than I expected”, there was a sweetness and a softness in his voice that Damen hadn’t heard before, and that he knew was completely fake, but which sounded strangely authentic. Damen thought that if he didn’t know Laurent, and if Laurent approached him with that soft voice and with that look in his eyes, he would fall for it, fall for him, in a blink. Laurent had a strange capacity to make people who didn’t know him trust him almost immediately. He was _that_ charismatic. He was _that_ dangerous.  
   
“Really?”  
   
“Yes. My muscles hardly hurt at all”.  
   
She walked towards him. “That’s great to hear, Laurent”.  
   
Laurent kept the smile firmly in place. Halvik pressed on Laurent’s stomach softly and Laurent bit his lips to stifle a groan.  
   
Halvik smiled. “Nice try”.  
   
Laurent groaned in frustration then. “I’m _fine_ ”.  
   
“No you’re not. And you’re getting two weeks of medical leave or you will get suspended for two weeks. It’s your choice”.  
   
“I _can_ study. My brain was not affected”.  
  
“Are you sure about that?”, Damen asked him with a smirk on his face.  
   
Laurent looked at him with utter hatred, a stark contrast to his previous, charming expression.  
   
“You can still go to your home, Lau-”  
   
“No”, Laurent cut her off quickly and seriously. “No, I’d rather not”.  
   
“Are you certain?”, Halvik asked him.  
   
“Absolutely”.  
   
She sighed. “Fine”.  
   
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him”, Damen said.  
   
She smiled at him.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “Yeah, by poisoning me”.  
   
Halvik ignored Laurent. “You’re his roommate?”, she asked, fixing her attention on Damen.  
   
“I am”.  
   
She nodded. “Good. I need you to keep an eye on him. Make sure he takes his medicines on time and that he gets proper rest”.  
   
“I’m his roommate, not his babysitter. How about you leave him here for another couple of days?”.  
   
Laurent groaned. “Shut up, brute!”  
   
Halvik laughed, convinced the two of them were joking. Truth was, Laurent was looking at Damen like he was one breath away from fetching that toxic agent. Damen just smiled at him, enjoying himself far too much. “Actually, I’ll let you go to your room now. But you have to have two weeks of rest and come see me eventually so I can check up on your injuries. If you strain yourself, I’ll know it. And I’ll add another week of leave. So try me”.  
   
Laurent sighed, a very dramatic sigh. “Alright”.  
   
Halvik turned to face Damen. “Do you think you can help him get to your room?”.  
   
“Of course!”, Damen said with a smile. “Come Laurent, I’ll take you to _our_ room”.  
   
Laurent glared at him. Damen grabbed him by the back and helped him stand up. As he was standing up, his shirt slipped up a little bit and Damen managed to see a small spot of his white, pristine, soft skin, and next to it, the place where Govart’s foot had crashed against Laurent’s body, staining it. Unconsciously, Damen tightened his hold on him. A second later, he felt a pinch in his arm. “Ouch!”, he said lowly.  
   
“Loosen the hold a little, you giant”, Laurent murmured against Damen’s ear.  
   
Damen loosened his hold on Laurent’s hips. Only when he was finally standing and he started walking, did Damen realize that Laurent was limping. That thought surprised him, and he felt a rush of anger and hatred against Govart. Of course, Laurent was a dick, but he didn’t deserve this. No one did. He wanted to cause as much pain to Govart as he had caused to Laurent.  
   
The walk toward their room was slow. Damen knew Laurent was in pain, it was obvious by the paleness in his face, but it was the only way in which his body betrayed him, for the rest of his stand was under complete and utter control. He leaned his weight against Damen through the walk, and Damen allowed him, just this once, knowing that Laurent wouldn’t do it if he could manage to walk by himself. He kept his hold on Laurent’s hips.  
   
When they were finally back in their room, Laurent immediately tucked himself into his bed. Damen gave him a glass of water. As soon as he brought it to him, Laurent’s eyes widened and he stared at Damen in wonder, as if he couldn’t quite figure out why Damen was doing what he was doing.  
   
Damen stared back at him fixedly for a couple seconds, then it all made sense to him and he cracked up in laughter. “You can’t really believe I poisoned it, do you?”  
   
“One can never be certain”, he replied, taking the cup from Damen’s hands.  
   
Damen smiled and sat on the edge of Laurent’s bed. “But then, who’d be there to make my life impossible during the rest of the year?”  
   
“I’m pretty certain you’d find another enemy easily. Just fuck one of the cheerleaders”, Laurent said simply, staring anywhere but at Damen.  
   
“Jesus, Laurent, you don’t have to be so blunt”.  
   
Laurent smiled and shrugged. “It worked with Govart”.  
   
“What happened?”  
   
“Nothing that should concern you”.  
   
Damen sighed. “Of course it wouldn’t”. He stood up and stretched his arms. Truth was, he was still feeling the effects of the hungover, but he’d been so intent on making sure Laurent was alright he hadn’t even noticed. Now that the initial adrenaline was gone, he realized he was not in the mood to put up with Laurent’s charade.  
   
He thought that leaving was probably the best thing he could do at the moment. He’d update Jord and Lazar on how Laurent was doing and avoid Nik’s questions at the same time.  
   
“Wait”.  
   
He stopped in front of the door, his hand a couple of inches away from the handle. He turned to look at Laurent, who was already tucked beneath the covers, which was enough for Damen to figure out that Laurent felt actually worse than he made it seem. “What?”  
   
“I, _fuck,_ erm I guess, thank you, Damianos”.  
   
“You _guess?_ ”  
   
Laurent exhaled loudly through his nose. “I meant, thank you, Damianos”.  
   
Damen smiled. “Better”.  
   
“I still don’t quite understand why you do what you do”.  
   
“Neither do I”, Damen replied.  
   
“You’re a disgusting person”, Laurent said, but there was no bite behind it. He said it in the same way he said ‘fuck’ which such easiness.  
   
“Oh, I’m disgusting now? I should make a list of all the adjectives you’ve called me. Never took you as one to use adjectives, deVere”.  
   
“Yes. You’re disgusting. Being a good person. That’s despicable”.  
   
“Hm… you think being nice is despicable. That explains a lot”.  
   
“Listen, giant”, Laurent said, sitting up slightly. “I-”, he cleared his throat. “I wanted to ask you something”.  
   
“Ask _me_ something?”, Damen’s interest was piqued.  
   
“Hm. Listen, I know you’re still angry even though you suck at it, otherwise you would have rejoiced at seeing me in that gurney”.  
   
“What makes you think I wasn’t enjoying it?”  
   
“Because you’re a disgusting person. And precisely because of that, I wanted to ask you to reach a temporary truce”.  
   
Damen’s eyes widened and his eyebrows lowered, without giving him enough time to hide his surprise. “A _truce?_ ”  
   
“Yes. I know I would defeat you either way, but I don’t feel like doing it. I’ll be stuck in this room for two weeks and so during that period of time, I’m asking you to be civil”.  
   
“I will be civil as long as you’re civil”.  
   
“I’m always civil”, Laurent replied.  
   
“Pfft”, Damen said, sarcastically. “I don’t think you have it in yourself. But by all means, I invite you to prove me wrong”.  
   
Laurent raised his eyebrow. “When haven’t I?”  
   
Damen smiled. “Then yes, I’ll agree to your truce”.  
   
“Good. See? You _can_ be civil”.  
   
“But apparently you can not”.  
   
“Shut up”.  
   
“I rest my case”, Damen said, walking towards the door, without saying goodbye to Laurent. But he did realize, when he knocked in front of Jord and Nik’s room, that there was still a smile on his face. This truce was going to be fun.  
   
Nik opened the door and Damen’s smile vanished.  
   
Nik stared at him expectantly. “What?”, he asked, after they stared at one another for a while, “did he kick you out of the room again?”  
   
Damen shook his head. “Actually, I’m here to talk to Jord”.  
   
“Yes, because you’re scared of what I’m going to ask you”.  
   
“No, because I know precisely what you’re going to ask me, and I’m not in the mood”.  
   
“Because we both know the answer”.  
   
“No, we don’t, Nik. Actually, can’t I just be nice to my roommate? Is it seriously so outrageous that I wouldn’t want him dead?”  
   
“It isn’t. If your roommate wasn’t both the reincarnation of Satan and of your ex-girlfriend”.  
   
Damen sighed. “Jord!”, he yelled.  
   
Nik pointed an accusatory finger at him. “This conversation isn’t over, Damianos, you won’t run away from it like a coward”.  
   
“It seems like I just did”, Damen replied, and a second later, Jord appeared at the door, pushing Nik slightly so he could see Damen. Nik pushed him too, laughing good-naturedly. Damen smiled at them, they’d seemed to have grown closer since they became roommates, and Damen felt… a little bit jealous at them and the simplicity with which they handled their friendship.  
   
“Hi, Damen”, Jord said. “Did you check on Laurent?”  
   
Nik groaned at the mention of his name. Damen ignored him. “Yes. He’s… he’s good, I suppose, but his injuries do seem to have been serious. The doctor gave him two weeks of leave”.  
   
Jord frowned. “Oh”, he said, his tone worried. “Did he leave already?”  
   
“He didn’t. He chose to stay here”.  
   
Jord’s frown deepened. “Really?”  
   
Damen nodded. “I don’t expect to understand why. Maybe to make my life a living hell for a little while longer”.  
   
“Okay, thank you. I’ll visit him later”, Jord said. “Thank you for taking care of him”.  
   
“I’m not taking care of him”.  
   
He heard Nikandros huffing behind Jord. He ignored it.  
   
Jord didn’t, and he stared at Damen for a second, before finally speaking again. “I’ll see you later, then”.  
   
Damen nodded, feeling already too awkward and wanting to end this conversation as fast as possible. Jord disappeared from the door and Nik stood there, staring at Damen. “I’m not taking care of him, Nik”.  
   
“You’re full of bullshit. And you owe me a long-ass conversation about this, so prepare for it”, Nik said, before closing the door in front of Damen’s face.  
   
*****  
   
After updating Lazar on Laurent’s state, Damen returned to their room, still feeling the pang in his head coming from too much booze. When he was about to enter the room, he heard voices through the door.  
   
“Get out of here”, he identified Laurent’s voice immediately, and he frowned.  
   
“Fuck you”, was the reply, coming from a voice Damen hadn’t heard before. Damen felt worried, all his senses instantly on alert. Was someone harassing Laurent? Was something wrong, what had happened? He pushed the door open immediately.  
   
He listened to Laurent’s groan, just as he fixed his eyes on the kid standing in front of his roommate’s bed.  
   
The kid, who was around 12 or 13 years old, who was wearing the school’s uniform and whose eyes seemed even more hypnotizing that Laurent’s, gave him a full smile. “Hi”, he said.  
   
“I’m going to _murder_ you”, Laurent said, but Damen realized that he hadn’t said it at him. It was the first time he said it to someone else since he’d known him.  
   
“I’d like you to try”, the kid replied. “Actually, I’ve been researching for effective methods of torture, I could give you some, if you’d like”.  
   
“Who the fuck are you?”, Damen asked, confused.  
   
The kid walked towards him and, out of nowhere, punched Damen in the stomach, _hard_. Damen felt the air leaving him. He hadn’t been prepared for it and it took him by surprise. The kid laughed and turned to look at Laurent, “he’s easy to manipulate, Laurent, how the fuck haven’t you kicked his ass yet?”  
   
“Have you seen his size?”, Laurent asked.  
   
The kid studied Damen for a moment. Damen looked around, feeling like he was part of a conversation he’d never agreed to take in the first place.  
   
“He must be sloppy when he fucks”, the kid said out of nowhere. “All those legs and arms dangling everywhere”.  
   
Damen’s eyes widened. “Alright, who _the fuck_ are you?”, he asked seriously, listening to Laurent’s soft chuckles in the back.  
   
The kid crossed his arms and stared at Damen defiantly. “My name is Nicaise, and I’m Laurent’s cousin”, he took a step forward, “who the fuck are you, _giant?_ ”  
 


	9. Chapter 9

“Well…fuck”, Laurent was the first one to break the silence while Damen and Nicaise studied each other.  
   
Nicaise was a fascinating human being. The tension in the room seemed to fly past him. He was leaning against Laurent’s bedsite table, his arms crossed in a pose strikingly similar to the one Laurent had been in when Damen saw him for the very first time, at that Biology class. He looked so at ease amidst Damen’s confusion and Laurent’s frustration, as if that had been his plan all along, as if he enjoyed to sit and watch hell unfold. He simply smiled at Damen, a smile that he seemed to have learnt from… his _cousin?_ Because it seemed just as fake and as capable of damaging and hurting as Laurent’s smiles. There was something innocent behind his stare, but at the same time a kind of sharpness that wasn’t usual from someone his age.  
   
“You know who he is”, Laurent replied, after a minute.  
   
Nicaise nodded.  
   
“I’m sorry, you’re his _what_ now?”, Damen asked, at a loss. He tried to wrap his mind around it but he just couldn’t understand.  
   
Nicaise laughed and turned to look at Laurent. “You were right. He’s an idiot”.  
   
Laurent sighed. “Nicaise, get out of here”.  
   
Nicaise’s eyebrows pinched. “But I’m _so_ worried about you, cousin”.  
   
“Oh fuck, there’s another Laurent in the world”, was all Damen could think about and he couldn’t not say it aloud.  
   
Nicaise cracked in laughter. “No, no, no. There’s someone _worse_ than Laurent, fucker”.  
   
Damen rubbed his temple, feeling a bit uneasy and trying to gather his thoughts together. The room was silent again and neither of them seemed willing to speak.  
   
“Nicaise. Get. Out”, Laurent said it in a way Damen hadn’t heard before. He finally turned to look at Laurent, who was still tucked in his bed, looking pale and tired, and Damen remembered then that it hadn’t even been 24 hours since he had been beaten, _badly,_ despite his attempts to hide it. There was a kind of authority in his voice that wasn’t unusual, but there was also a kind of tenderness that was completely foreign for Damen. Laurent managed something with his voice that many few people could: express it all or hide it all with its tone, and within it, Damen could see an inner struggle: loving, hating, exposing, hiding. It was obvious then that Laurent cared about this kid more than he let on.  
   
Nicaise looked at Laurent and raised an eyebrow, defiantly. Laurent didn’t flinch at his stare, nor did he look away. His gaze remained firmly in place. Nicaise sighed and uncrossed his arms. “I’ll keep visiting you. This was so much fun”, he said as he walked towards the door, where Damen was still standing, still feeling out of place and a little bit lost. “Nice to finally meet you, I’ve heard _so much_ about you”.  
   
“GET OUT!”, Laurent said, throwing a pillow at him, which, Damen realized then, seemed to be something he didwhen he didn’t know what else to do to get his way.  
   
Nicaise laughed and pushed Damen aside, trying to make his way through the door. “You have my permission to asphyxiate him”, he said to Damen on his way out, “he couldn’t fight with all that weight over him, it would be a quick kill”.  
   
“You’re nice”, Damen replied, sarcastically.  
   
Nicaise winked at him and closed the door behind him.  
   
Damen stared at the door for a minute or two before shaking his head and walking into the bedroom. As soon as he did, Laurent rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and leaned against the pillow with a sigh, as if he felt both endlessly annoyed and mentally prepared to face Damen’s questions.  
   
“What the hell was that?”, Damen said, turning to look at Laurent.  
   
“That was Nicaise… being Nicaise”, Laurent replied with a shrug.  
   
“Is he always like that?”, Damen asked, shocked.  
   
“Worse”.  
   
Damen shook his head and looked down. “I just- I can’t understand”.  
   
“Want me to explain it to you with your action figures?”  
   
“He’s your cousin? For real?”  
   
Laurent sighed and nodded. “Yes. He’s my cousin”.  
   
“And he studies here”, Damen said, more to himself, than to Laurent.  
   
“He does”.  
   
Damen laughed. A small laugh that came out unbidden and which didn’t sit well on Laurent either. A second later, he stared at Laurent in awe. “How on _Earth_ have you kept this a secret?”  
   
Laurent shrugged. “There are many things you don’t know about me”.  
   
“No, I know that. I just- I don’t get it”.  
   
“What?”  
   
“Why did you feel the need to keep it a secret?”, Damen said softly, sitting on the edge of his own bed, knowing Laurent didn’t like feeling crowded and that he sometimes needed a little bit of space and air, especially when he shared any information he didn’t wish to share.  
   
Laurent stared at him for a moment, simply studying him. Damen stared back and could only find those blue, piercing, intense, intimidating, cold eyes. “Because I need to protect him”, Laurent finally replied, low, very, very low, but loud enough for Damen to hear.  
   
“From what?”, Damen whispered.  
   
“From the world, Damianos. And trust me, it’s for the best no one finds out I’m related to him in any way”, Laurent’s tone was sharp now.  
   
“Seems like he’s quite capable of taking care of himself”, Damen said, tying to lighten the mood.  
   
The corners of Laurent’s mouth lifted, just a little bit, not forming quite a smile but something slightly similar to one. “He is, but-”, he stopped.  
   
“But?”, Damen felt the need to ask.  
   
“But he’s just a _kid_ ”, Laurent replied, the not-quite-but-almost smile vanishing from his face, his expression replaced by something darker, something that Damen couldn’t quite figure out.  
   
Damen nodded, kind of understanding what Laurent meant.  
   
The room was awfully silent and Damen didn’t know what to do, what to say. It seemed as if Laurent had isolated himself in some corner of his mind, deep in focus, as if he was desperately trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together.  
   
Whenever Laurent locked himself inside himself, it was as if an eclipse crossed over his face. The brightness and the light rays of gold seemed to be replaced by a kind of darkness that Damen couldn’t understand nor explain, as if slowly, very slowly, the last traces of life left Laurent, as if he allowed the darkness to drag him in, as if he needed to go retreat somewhere only himself could find, only he could understand. Damen felt the need to drag him out of it, to find, once again, the light amidst the darkness, the life amidst the death.  
   
The cypresses came back to his mind and he smiled at the memory.  
   
“Anything else you’d like to share? Do you have a lost son? Are you keeping a puppy hidden in here?”  
   
And surprisingly enough, it worked.  
   
Laurent blinked and turned to look at him. He frowned. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then he laughed, a kind of laugh that he fought against, as if he didn’t wish to expose it, but he couldn’t help it. And just like that, the end of the eclipse, and the blinding, intense rays of sun capable of lighting it all, reaching every dark corner and painting it with gold. Damen smiled at him. Laurent shook his head. “No, no. Although the puppy doesn’t sound like a bad idea, though I’d prefer a kitten”.  
   
Damen pointed at him, menacingly. “Don’t even think about it. I’m allergic to cats”, he said, and then his eyes widened in realization. “Fuck, I just gave you the perfect ammunition, didn’t I?”.  
   
Laurent stared at Damen, the smile no longer in his face, but the corners of his eyes still showing a kind of lightness that hadn’t been there before. “Listen. I- I have to ask you to keep this a secret. As part of our truce. How about we reach a deal? I stop making your life a living mess, I forget about the cats and you don’t tell anyone about Nicaise”.  
   
“Seems like a small price to pay to keep you off my back”.  
   
Laurent shrugged, “we’re still roommates, so you won’t get me _completely_ off your back”.  
   
Damen sighed, it was a bit overreacted, but it was appropriate. “…The cross I have to bear”.  
   
Laurent nodded. “Trust me, the feeling is mutual”.  
   
Damen stared at him for a moment. He shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t even question it, but he couldn’t help it, not when Laurent seemed to be sharing more than he should. “…And we also have to do the biology project…”, he said, a bit hesitantly.  
   
Laurent frowned thoughtfully and remained silent.  
   
In those seconds, Damen fought a war with himself. He wanted to take it back and say that he was actually planning on doing it alone, that he shouldn’t have said that, that he was still hungover, that he was stupid, anything so he wouldn’t give Laurent another piece of leverage, so he wouldn’t make a fool out of himself in front of him yet again.  
   
“…Right, the project”, Laurent said, quietly. Then, even in a lower voice, “yes”.  
   
Damen released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. He ruffled his hair with his hands, trying to clear his head, when he looked up, Laurent was staring intently at him. Damen smiled, a smug kind of smile. “So”, he raised an eyebrow, “I suppose the truce also covers this work”.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “Yes, sure, I won’t yell at you again for whatever happens to the leaves, I’ll just stare at you with disapproval, cross my arms and leave”.  
   
“You say it like it’s a certainty I’ll fail”.  
   
“It is”.  
   
“You wouldn’t even make it out of the door in this state”.  
   
“You underestimate my force of will”, Laurent replied, stubbornly.  
   
Damen laughed. “I might just ruin it all, then, it will be fun to watch”.  
   
“That would explain why you keep fucking up all the time”.  
   
“It would, wouldn’t it?”  
   
Laurent did that expression again when he seemed to smile but he didn’t, not quite.  
   
“It wouldn’t explain though”, Damen continued, “why you yelled at me after _you_ lost the leaves you blamed me for losing”.  
   
Laurent groaned. “An apology is not part of the truce”.  
   
“I don’t expect one”.  
   
“You don’t _deserve_ it”, Laurent replied, the words resonating with Damen, and then he remembered that had been exactly what he’d told Laurent during their fight. However, his mind didn’t immediately bring the memory of that particular conversation back, but rather the _feeling_ of it. He remembered their proximity, their chests heaving in unhindered anger, their mutual need to tear each other apart, to break the other to pieces, then Laurent’s eyes looking down, and his lips, pink and dry and emanating a kind of magnetism that Damen wanted to get lost in.  
   
The room had grown dreadfully silent.  
   
Damen realized that Laurent’s expression had changed, just a little bit, that he no longer looked as at ease as he’d done before, that there was a shadow clouding his eyes. Damen frowned, and then he realized, Laurent was speaking with everything but words.  
   
“You’re in pain”, Damen said, matter-of-factly.  
   
Laurent lost the battle with himself and slumped against the pillow, his expression finally showing what he was currently feeling. He no longer seemed to be in control of his own body, he looked too exhausted to do it. He stared at Damen for a while, and then, slowly, he nodded, looking like he hated the fact that he’d admitted it, and at the same time he stared in wonder, like he was pondering on the fact Damen had read through his walls.  
   
“I’ll fetch you the pills”, Damen said, walking towards the bathroom and taking two pain relief medicines and a glass of water.  
   
When he came back, Laurent was staring at him, his expression saying nothing, but he seemed to be unable to look away. He’d managed to hide his grimace of pain, but now his face was as nonchalant as it always seemed to be.  
   
Damen ignored that look, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to decodify it, and simply focused on handing the pills to Laurent, who took them with a soft, “thank you”.  
   
After he swallowed them, he simply said, “you didn’t have to do that”.  
   
“I know”.  
   
That was all Damen said before falling asleep. His head was throbbing, and he’d had a longer day than he’d expected, burdened with secrets and truces and cousins and the unsolved enigma of Laurent, which now, he’d come to realize, had grown even more complex.  
   
   
********  
   
The next day, Torveld, Jord and Lazar went to visit Laurent. Damen, who had barely slept at all the night before and who truly wasn’t feeling in the mood to socialize, opened the door and he turned to look at Laurent for a second, he could see Laurent’s face falling, and he could see how he struggled to gain his regality back, as if he felt challenged to prove he was feeling good. Truth was he hadn’t talked much and had barely acknowledged Damen’s presence, which was perfect for Damen, because in that gloomy Sunday afternoon, everything seemed slightly darker.  
   
The moment they walked in, Laurent smiled at them, a polite and terribly fake smile but that seemed to be good enough to convince Torveld, who copied the expression, smiling broadly and genuinely. Damen, who was behind them, rolled his eyes. Laurent looked at him for a moment and the smile looked slightly more realistic. Deciding that he’d had enough and that Laurent could use some time alone with his…friends, Damen simply said, “I’ll let you be”, and went to find Nik.  
   
He found him at his room, laying on his bed and staring at the ceiling. As soon as Damen walked in, Nik sighed and sat up. Damen frowned. “What’s wrong?”, he asked.  
   
Nik stretched and replied, “I’m bored”.  
   
“Great. I’m here to entertain you with a very amenable conversation”.  
   
“Are we going to talk about the long-haired asshole?”  
   
Damen shook his head, trying to smile but being unable to. His expression betrayed him and he looked miserable instead. “Actually, no, we’re not. Today is Kastor’s birthday. Thought I could use a friend”.  
   
Nik’s face fell. “Oh…”, he said, realization hitting him. “I’m sorry, Damen”.  
   
Damen laughed, a fake laugh, as he ruffled his hair, trying to aim for nonchalance but failing terribly at it. “I’ve been trying to avoid the thought all day, but I can’t help it, I haven’t stopped struggling with whether to call him or not”.  
   
Nik laid on the bed and patted the place next to him. Damen laid there and stared at the ceiling, feeling like he wanted to cry. He swallowed down the lump on his throat. “Do you want to call him?”  
   
Damen shook his head. “I don’t know, Nik. I don’t know if I feel hatred or rage or pain or all of them at the same time, I don’t know if calling him would help in any way, I don’t know if I want to yell at him or to hug him, I don’t know if I should blame him for everything or apologize”.  
   
“Oh for fuck’s sake, stop _goading_ Damen”.  
   
Damen looked at him in surprise.  
   
“I love you man, but you seriously need to put your shit together. Stop idolizing him. He’s an idiot and he doesn’t deserve your love”.  
   
“He’s the only family I have, Nik”, Damen said, and it sounded broken, hopeless. He couldn’t stop himself and he broke down, right there, in front of the only person who had ever seen him like this before, the one he knew would always support him.  
   
Nik remained silent.  
   
So did Damen and they didn’t utter a word. Eventually, Nik stood up with a groan. “Need some rock music to cheer you up?”  
   
Damen smiled. This was what Nik did. He always knew what to do, even when he didn’t. It was clear he had no idea how to reply, but he could always comfort Damen with music. “Yes, _please,_ I’m aching for some Zeppelin”.  
   
Nik nodded and played Led Zeppelin. Surprisingly enough, the music seemed to calm Damen, to anchor him to the here and the now, to get lost amidst Page’s guitar solos, the strum of Bonham’s drums and Plant’s raw, deep voice. His thoughts vanished. The pain remained, a physical and psychological pain, but he always had the music, always. And he had Nik, too.  
   
By the time he returned to his room, he was exhausted. Laurent was alone again, laying on the bed while reading a book. Damen threw himself over his bed, laying on his stomach. He could feel Laurent’s eyes on him. He didn’t speak.  
   
Neither did Laurent.  
   
A while later, Laurent stood up and walked towards the bathroom, he was still walking slowly, his muscles sore, and when he came back, he returned and sat on Damen’s bed, crushing one of Damen’s bare feet.  
   
“Ouch!”, Damen said, opening one eye, and feeling the weight of Laurent over him. Laurent was smiling, clearly enjoying Damen’s reaction. “What, what do you want?”  
   
“Nothing, just a little change of scenery. Your feet aren’t as comfortable as they seemed, though. I imagined all that fat would soften my fall”.  
   
Damen kicked him playfully, but not feeling playful at all. “You’re breaking the truce”, Damen replied.  
   
“I’ve been civil”.  
   
“This is civil for you?”  
   
He leaned his weight even more heavily against Damen’s foot. “It is”.  
   
Damen sighed. “I’m not in the mood, Laurent”.  
   
“In the mood to act like a human being instead of an orangutan?”, Laurent asked.  
   
Damen groaned and sat up. “Exactly”, he said, removing his feet from beneath Laurent’s ass. Only then did he realize of how close they were. Laurent’s eyes were fixed on him, impenetrable, unreachable, cold, detached, perfect.  
   
Damen dragged in a deep breath.  
   
Laurent blinked. A second later, he pinched him.  
   
“Ah! What the _fuck?_ ”, Damen asked.  
   
“You were too expressionless, it’s even more boring. And highly unusual coming from you”.  
   
“Goodnight, Laurent”, Damen said sharply, standing up and walking towards the bathroom, leaving Laurent behind, still sitting on his bed.  
   
When he came back, Laurent was already tucked in his own bed. They turned their lights off. Everything was too dark and too silent and Damen felt the utter need to hold onto _something,_ anything. He ached for it. He yearned for it. There was a hollowness in his chest he didn’t know how to fulfill, but he desperately needed something to bring him back to reality, to hold him there, the way that Zeppelin song had managed to some hours before. He wished he could see the color of Laurent’s hair, study it, analyze it, categorize it. Hold onto something. Something to fill the void. The color, the life, the texture, the hardness, the coldness. He needed more than darkness, more than silence. He needed some kind of light. He needed the sunlight reflecting on Laurent’s strands of hair.  
   
He gathered all the courage he could and dared himself to ask, “you have a brother, right?”  
   
Silence. Deafening silence. And cold and ice and death. _Boreas._ Laurent replied a minute later, as if he’d pondered on that question during all that time, as if he didn’t know what to say, how much to give away, how to say it.  
   
“Yes”.  
   
“How is he like?”, Damen asked, softly.  
   
Laurent cleared his throat. “He’s the best man you could ever possibly know”.  
   
“Today was my brother’s birthday”, Damen stated.  
   
“Oh?”  
   
“I hate him”.  
   
“You do?”  
   
“No”.  
   
“I figured. You don’t have it in yourself”.  
   
“I don’t?”  
   
“No. Because you’re disgusting”.  
   
Damen smiled.


	10. Chapter 10

“No, no, no, no”, Damen groaned.  
   
“What?”  
   
“ _This_ is part of the truce”.  
   
“We never set the rules”.  
   
“You just broke the truce”.  
   
“I did not!”, Laurent said, feigning feeling offended after Damen’s accusation.  
   
It had been a couple of days since Laurent’s fight with Govart and he was still on medical leave, and growing more and more annoying the more time passed. Damen felt better the day after Kastor’s birthday, by forgetting all about it and spending the whole day focused on football practice. When he came back to their bedroom, Laurent was already growing restless and bombarded him with a hundred questions Damen didn’t feel like replying because he was physically exhausted. He fell asleep a couple of minutes later. Until…something hit him on the face.  
   
He opened his eye and found it was one of Laurent’s slippers.  
   
“You just woke me the _fuck_ up at the three in the morning!”  
   
“I was bored”.  
   
“You could try sleeping”, Damen said, with a grunt of annoyance, before turning to look at Laurent, who was staring at the ceiling.  
   
“You’re a genius! How haven’t I thought about it during the last four hours I spent looking at the ceiling while you snored like a drunkard?”, Laurent said sharply.  
   
“You’re just jealous I can actually move to get out of bed”.  
   
Laurent didn’t reply. Damen kept staring at the ceiling while pondering on whether that had been the right thing to say.  
   
“I wasn’t jealous of your hangover that day”, Laurent finally said.  
   
“Oh, you figured?”  
   
“I smelled your breath from the moment you walked into the infirmary”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “It was a good night”.  
   
“Can’t say the same”, Laurent said, seriously.  
   
Damen knew he had to thread carefully. “Erm, about that… what _the hell_ happened?”, he asked lowly, “how did it happen?”.  
   
“It does not concern you”, he repeated, just like he had in the afternoon. But this time Damen wouldn’t have it, he wouldn’t just shut up and carry on, he wanted to push forward, he wanted to show Laurent that there was a reason why he was asking.  
   
“It fucking does! It does if it means that in two weeks, when Govart returns, you will appear at the doorstep beaten to a pulp! If we’re doing this, I need you to tell me why it happened, and if it’s possible it could happen again and I’m not hearing any more arguments, asshole”, he replied, before throwing the slipper back to Laurent and hitting him on the face.  
   
He smiled.  
   
The room was awfully silent.  
   
He could hear Laurent’s breathing.  
   
He heard the sharp intake of breath. A second later, “I pissed him off”.  
   
“Shocking”, Damen replied. He could hear Laurent’s small smile drawing itself in his face. He preferred to keep it this way. He didn’t want Laurent to feel like he was revealing too much of himself, like it would change anything. Not that there was much to change in the first place. “Why?”  
   
“You don’t need the specifics. Want to know if it’s possible he’d try it again? Yes, probably. Will I let him do this to me once again? No. I’d like to see him try. I’ll destroy him”, it sounded like a promise. “This time I… I got distracted”.  
   
“I’ve never seen you distracted”.  
   
“Nor you ever will”, then, lower, “he wasn’t meant to distract me”.  
   
Damen nodded. He wanted to ask more but he knew Laurent wouldn’t allow it.   
   
“How are you feeling?”  
   
“Perfect”, he turned to look at Damen and their eyes met. Then, bluntly, “I don’t need you to protect me”.  
   
“You don’t need anyone to protect you”.  
   
“I know that”, Laurent said, but the way he said it made it sound hesitant, as if he needed the reassurance.  
   
“Doesn’t mean I won’t if you need it”, Damen said, without knowing nor understanding why. The words seemed to have an immediate effect on Laurent, who turned on his back and stared at the ceiling again. Damen sighed. He’d _felt_ it. He could almost see all of Laurent’s walls being pulled back up, and him retreating into that dark place he seemed to get lost in.  
   
“Waking you up was a bad idea. You’re even more annoying at three in the morning”, Laurent said.  
   
“That’s something we can both agree on”.  
   
“I’m sleepy now”.  
   
“Did I get you bored?”  
   
“Always”.  
   
“Sucks for you”, Damen replied. Laurent didn’t say anything back. Damen called his name a couple times and then he realized, after he heard him breathing deeply, that he’d fallen asleep.  
   
And Damen was anything but sleepy at the moment.  
   
“ _Fuck_ you, Laurent deVere”, Damen whispered as he stared at the ceiling, listening to Laurent’s breathing.  
   
******  
   
Damen spent all of Biology class staring at Kastor’s Facebook profile and reading all the messages people had left them while he silently wondered if he should have left him one and hating himself for asking himself that question and then wondering again and feeling all the anxiety crawling over him.  
   
And then he saw the message Jokaste had left him.  
   
And all the air left him.  
   
It was the first time he’d seen her since classes had started. She was just as beautiful as he remembered. The message was simply a picture of both of them looking at each other and smiling. And Damen _hated_ the fact they looked happy. And he _hated_ the fact that he couldn’t even tell if Jokaste was faking that expression or not. And he _hated_ the fact that it was probable she _was_ faking it and he _hated_ the fact that his heart did a little jump the moment he saw her face and-  
   
“Damianos!”, he felt a kick in his chair.  
   
He turned to look behind him and noticed Jord, who was sitting behind him, calling his name, as soon as their eyes met, Jord turned to look at Guion.  
   
Who was in front of Damen, staring at him disapprovingly.  
   
“Give me your cell phone, young man”.  
   
“But-”  
   
“The. Cell. Phone”.  
   
Damen sighed, locked it and handed it to Guion, who told him he could pick it up at the end of the school day, which would be fine except for the fact this was the first class of the day and that meant he’d be without it for a very, very long time, which probably wasn’t that bad, because he knew he would spend the whole day looking at that picture and feeling like complete and utter _shit._ Guion glared at him and walked back to the whiteboard.  
   
Damen tried as best as he could to pay attention to class, but his brain was screaming at him.  
   
During the break, he came back to their room. Laurent was reading a book in his bed and as soon as Damen walked in, he looked up, an eyebrow raised. He had taken a shower recently and his hair was wet. Damen realized that was a look that suited him, but that was as much as he managed to think.  
   
“Guion took my phone”, Damen said, throwing himself on the bed.  
   
Laurent laughed. “Why? Were you watching porn in class?”  
   
Damen scoffed. “I wish it was porn what I was seeing”.  
   
Laurent frowned but didn’t prod him any further. “You _have_ to pay attention to that class, otherwise we won’t know how to do the project”.  
   
“Are you scolding me?”  
   
“I just don’t trust you at all”.  
   
“The feeling, as I’ve said many times, truly is mutual. How are you feeling today?”  
   
Laurent returned to his book. “I’m wonderful. I could go back and kick anyone’s ass at this exact moment”.  
   
“I’d invite you to try but we both know that could not possibly end well”.  
   
“You should admit you’re scared and that would be it”.  
   
Damen smiled and shook his head. Laurent had an…uncanny ability to make him forget his problems, all of the sudden. He couldn’t explain it, maybe it was because he spent his mental energy trying to keep up with him, trying to reply to his biting retorts, trying to get to know more about him, but suddenly all the other topics that would burden his mind would vanish and seemed irrelevant next to his enigma.  
   
And if he had to choose between feeling like shit while thinking about Kastor and Jokaste or to keep fighting playfully with Laurent, he would always choose Laurent.  
   
The last couple of days they had fallen into a certain ease Damen hadn’t experienced before. Laurent, despite being annoyed and tired of being confined to bed, had kept to his part of the truce and stopped being that much of a pain in the ass to Damen, and Damen could do nothing but enjoy it while it lasted. A certain sense of comradery, if they could even call it that, had developed between them. And it couldn’t have come at a better time, because Damen truly needed a break at the moment.  
   
And then, the door opened in a flash. Damen sat up from the bed and found a man in his forties, someone he didn’t recognize, looking around the room.  
   
He turned to look at Laurent, who had gone pale, yet his face remained expressionless. He put the book down. “Uncle?”, he asked.  
   
Damen frowned. Laurent’s… uncle? Was examining Laurent’s face, which was still covered by a couple of bruises which hadn’t quite healed yet. “My God, Laurent, what happened to you?”  
   
Laurent raised an eyebrow and stared at him defiantly. He didn’t reply to his inquiry. A second later, he asked, his voice thin, betraying his surprise, but sounding as authoritative as he only knew to make it sound. “What are you doing here?”  
   
It suddenly seemed as if Laurent and his uncle were in a competition of staring. Yet both faces remained completely impassive, revealing nothing, exposing nothing, yet understanding each other in a kind of silent conversation Damen couldn’t even begin to decode. He fidgeted anxiously in his bed before he stood up.  
   
“I-”, he cleared his throat because it sounded quite hoarse, “I should probably go”.  
   
Laurent broke eye contact with his uncle before fixing his eyes on Damen, blinking and then staring at him up and down. “No”.  
   
“What?”  
   
“No. You stay. He won’t take long in here. We have nothing to discuss”, he said as he turned his attention back to his uncle.  
   
Damen honestly had no idea what to do. Everything about the environment felt _wrong,_ as if with that door opening, a cold winter breeze had fallen over both of them, something Laurent hadn’t managed to do before. He couldn’t understand why.  
   
“We have many matters to discuss, nephew”, and then Laurent’s uncle turned to look at Damen, “and I would like some privacy, if it is not too much to ask”, he said softly, in a nice voice that seemed intended to soothe Damen, and surprisingly enough, his voice seemed able to cut through the ice in the room.  
   
“Of course I-”  
   
“Damianos stays”, Laurent repeated. No hint or trace of urgency nor despair in his voice, but Damen knew better, there was a reason why he was there and he tried to wrap his mind around it. Why the hell did Laurent want him there for? “if you can’t discuss any matter in front of him, then I kindly request you to leave”.  
   
The ice was back, invading every single corner of their room.  
   
Laurent’s uncle smiled and shook his head, taking off his gloves and his coat before fetching one of their desk chairs and sitting on it. He examined his nephew carefully. “Always so difficult, Laurent”.  
   
“Anything you’d like to say? Or are you just here to judge me? Which, of course, wouldn’t be a surprise coming from you, uncle”, Laurent replied calmly.  
   
“Yes”, his face grew serious. “I would like to ask you why I received a call from the school requesting my presence here, but your face said it all”.  
   
Laurent stared at him fixedly. “I didn’t want to lose the habit of ending with a couple of bruises. I _missed_ them”, he said, defiantly.  
   
His uncle’s face was stone-cold. “Careful with your words, Laurent. I’ve been nothing but loving with you”.  
   
“Of course you have been”.  
   
“Now”, he said, changing the topic, “can you explain to me what happened? I want to hear it from you before talking to the principal”.  
   
Laurent sighed. “I got into a fight”.  
   
“I can tell that.”, he said.  
   
“Then that’s all you need”.  
   
“Look at you. You could have come home and received the proper care, nephew”.  
   
“Thanks. I would have rather died”.  
   
Damen frowned and fixed his eyes on Laurent, he just couldn’t understand his attitude.  
   
His uncle sighed. “So stubborn. Was it your fault?”  
   
Laurent smiled. “You know me. What do you think?”  
   
His uncle stared at him deeply, analyzing him, before standing up with a nod. “They won’t suspend you, but you have been warned. They don’t want this situation to repeat again”.  
   
“Of course you were lying and you had already met with the principal and just wanted to hear which excuse I would give you. Sorry I couldn’t give you the satisfaction”, Laurent said, his face dead serious, “and worry not, it won’t happen again”.  
   
“I trust you”.  
   
Laurent laughed. “Do you?”  
   
“Of course I do, nephew”.  
   
He put his gloves on again. “I want you and Nicaise over for Christmas break”.  
   
Laurent opened his mouth to reply but his uncle threw an authoritative look at him, one that demanded not to be questioned. “It’s an order”.  
   
Laurent crossed his arms defensively. “Yes, uncle”, he said sharply.  
   
“It will be good to have you both back”, he said with a fond smile.  
   
“Marvelous”, Laurent replied sarcastically.  
   
“Please have those injuries checked”, he said walking towards Laurent’s bed. Damen could notice from the corner of his eye the way Laurent moved further from him and towards his wall. He frowned. Laurent’s uncle placed a hand over his head. “And get some rest, you need it”.  
   
Laurent nodded but didn’t say anything else, his face revealing nothing. His uncle nodded back and walked towards the door. “It was nice to meet you-”  
   
“Damianos”, Damen replied.  
   
“Damianos. Are you dating my nephew?”, he said bluntly.  
   
Damen coughed. “I- erm- no”, he could see Laurent laughing next to him, “I’m just his- roommate”.  
   
Laurent’s uncle looked at him up and down before nodding slowly. “Thank you for taking care of him”, he replied, lowly.  
   
“Of course”.  
   
“I’ll see you later”, he said, before walking out and closing the door behind him.  “Give my best to Nicaise, Laurent”.  
   
Laurent threw daggers at the back of his face with his eyes. Damen turned to look at him.  
   
Laurent dragged a deep breath and pulled his hands into fists. He tried to calm himself down but it was clear he hadn’t managed to do it. Damen stood up, he knew what he wanted the least was to be seen like that. He wanted to give Laurent some privacy.  
   
“No. Stay here”, Laurent replied as Damen started to walk away.  
   
Damen nodded and sat on his bed again. He couldn’t understand what possible ruse those two could have that could have such an effect on Laurent, impassive, cold, detached Laurent. He frowned.  
   
“Can you bring me a glass of water?”, Laurent asked Damen.  
   
“Of course”. When he came back to their room, he handed it to Laurent. “Want me to poison it?”, he asked Laurent.  
   
Laurent stared at him. His clear blue eyes fixing on Damen with a frown before he broke into a small smile. “Doesn’t sound like such a terrible idea”, he said, downing the water.  
   
“It’s just your uncle, Laurent”, Damen said, sitting on Laurent’s bed, trying to provide him some comfort.  
   
Laurent closed his eyes, his face growing tense. “You’ve exceeded the liberties I’ve given you. Now, kindly, get out”, he said the last bit sharply and angrily.  
   
Damen frowned. “I’m sorry I-”  
   
“No. Just. Get out”.  
   
“Laurent, I-”  
   
“Damen, I need you to get out”, he said with authority, very, very low, but with enough force it felt as if he was yelling at him.  
   
Damen flinched and stood up, he looked at his watch. “I have to go back to class anyway”.  
   
“Good”.  
   
“I’m sorry”.  
   
“Go”.  
   
And he did.   
   
*****  
   
The rest of the day passed by slowly. Damen chose to stay alone and think. He liked it when the cold was starting to hit. Throughout his childhood, he’d spent most of his time outdoors during the Summer, and he’d loved the warm weather, but now it was bringing back ugly memories, like the kind of memento which is strong and intense enough that it nullifies all the other memories that had come before, all the memories that seemed to matter before that _one_ destructive, absorbing, consuming memory came and took it all.  
   
He had a couple of those.  
   
His parents dying was one of them.  
   
Losing Kastor was another.  
   
And Laurent… he couldn’t even tell where he could place Laurent, if it worked better in the group of the memories that seem important until they’re swept away or in the kind of turbulent force that takes it all and forces itself to be known and to be felt. To be honest, the second option seemed more suitable for Laurent.  
   
When he finally asked Guion for his phone, and after getting an entire lecture on why he should pay attention to class and why it was disrespectful to use the phone, he realized he’d had a couple of messages from Nik, who sounded worried about Damen’s state of mind after what he’d told him the day before. He knew Damen enough to know he wouldn’t do anything crazy when overcome by sadness, for Damen was mostly in control of his emotions, but he feared he might have closed himself once again from the outside world, something he tended to share with Laurent, paradoxically.  
   
He knocked on Nik’s door and Nik opened immediately…  
   
And smacked Damen in the head.  
   
“What is wrong with you?”, Damen asked him, rubbing his head.  
   
“Why didn’t you reply to my texts, asshole? I was worried about you!”  
   
Damen shook his head. “Let’s go grab a coffee and I’ll tell you”.  
   
Nik nodded and closed the door behind him. “I actually went looking for you to your room”.  
   
“You did?”  
   
“Yeah, and your roommate opened the door. He looks like shit, man”.  
   
Damen sighed. “I know. I can’t imagine what was going through his mind when he agreed to pick a fight with Govart of all people”.  
   
“Well, not everyone is as patient as you, and Govart is not particularly known for his patience”.  
   
“Yes but- it’s weird, Nik, something isn’t adding up there, and he won’t tell me anything. It’s so fucking frustrating”.  
   
“He looked slightly…off”, Nik pointed out, “I greeted him with an insult and he didn’t reply, he barely answered my questions and he seemed thoughtful”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “Sounds like what Laurent would do”.  
   
“Alright, so why didn’t you reply to my messages?”, Nik said as they sat with their coffees.  
   
“Guion took my phone”.  
   
Nik laughed. Damen ignored him.  
   
“Jokaste posted a picture with Kastor for his birthday”.  
   
Nik frowned. “She did?”  
   
Damen nodded. “I fucking hate them”.  
   
Nik sighed. “I think that’s the universe’s way of telling you that it’s finally time to let go”.  
   
“I know, Nik. I don’t feel anything about her, I don’t care. It’s just… I don’t know, everything seems like a mess right now. It’s the first time I spend my brother’s birthday without talking to him and there’s Laurent and-” _and I feel like I fucked everything between us but I can’t even understand what nor what I actually fucked up in the first place._  
   
Nik’s eyes widened. “What about Laurent?”, he prodded.  
   
Damen rubbed the back of his neck. “Nothing. He just- his uncle visited him today and told him to spend Christmas with him and, I don’t know, it made me ache for that, you know? I have nothing to come back to, nothing to look forward to, only that old house which is only the constant memory of losing my parents and now the memory of losing my brother. I haven’t set a foot in it since I left and doing it again feels…like a lot. I don’t know, Nik, I’m aching for that, for having a family to visit, for turning back time and never losing my parents, never losing my brother. I fucking _hate_ all of this”.  
   
“You can come to our house for the holidays, you know that, Damen”.  
   
Damen nodded. “And I will visit you during the break but, this is something I have to do. I have to go back there”.  
   
Nik nodded.    
   
“I have to face it all. Even Kastor, if I have to”. Damen said, and then he looked away because he simply couldn’t be this vulnerable anymore, he hated feeling like that and exposing himself like that, even if it was in front of Nik.  
   
Nik noticed and, taking a sip of coffee, he changed the topic. “I heard Jord is dating Aimeric”.  
   
“I saw it coming”, Damen replied.  
   
“Really?”, Nik said, his eyebrows raising. “The worst part of it all is that he hasn’t told me anything, I once even asked him about Aimeric and he blushed but he pretended he barely knew him”.  
   
“I can only imagine your approach to that question”.  
   
“I brought it up casually!”, Nik said, defensively.  
   
“There’s no _casually_ with you, Nik, knowing you, you probably came in yelling the name right in front of his face”.  
   
“No, it wasn’t like that. Or, was it? Oh god, what if it was? But still! He should have told me! We’re _friends_ now, or something like that”.  
   
“Honestly, I envy you both. I wish I could have _that_ with Laurent”.  
   
“It’s difficult to be friends with someone you have a massive crush with”.  
   
“Then it’s good I _don’t have_ one on him”.  
   
“The only logical reason why you’re not friends”.  
   
“I heard Torveld has a crush on him”, Damen said, aiming for nonchalance, and hoping to steer the conversation to another territory.  
   
Nik flinched. “I honestly don’t see the appeal”.  
   
“That’s because you have the need to defend me and you hate him because of that. But, if you knew him…”  
   
Nik smiled at Damen. “Oh _fuck_ you”, Damen said, cutting himself and getting angry at Nik’s prodding.


	11. Chapter 11

“Hi”.  
   
Laurent looked up at him from the book he was reading. For a moment, Damen felt anxiety crippling down his back, wondering for a second if he’d ruined the mood they’d been in before all the mess he’d gone through during the day. He looked at everything but Laurent. A second later, “hi”.  
   
“Can I sleep here tonight?”, Damen asked him softly.  
   
Laurent examined him for a moment, staring at him deeply. Damen dragged a deep breath. He never knew what to expect from Laurent.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “What a stupid question to ask”.  
   
“Is that a fucking yes or a no?”, he asked, not in the mood to ask too many things.  
   
Laurent stared at him in awe. “This is your room”.  
   
Damen sat on his bed with a sigh. “This is _our_ room”.  
   
“Right”.  
   
Laurent returned to his book. Damen didn’t ask him anything else, he simply laid on the bed while he stared at the ceiling. It had been a long day, one of those days that seem to drag on and on and on as if a whole week had been tuck into the mask of a single day, as if all the problems were waiting for that particular day to catch up to him.  
   
Laurent put down the book. He then fixed his eyes on Damen.  
   
Damen felt the burning aching scarring presence of those blue eyes observing studying analyzing. He forced himself to look back at him. Laurent was staring. Damen stared back.  
   
“What?”, Damen asked.  
   
“Thank you”.  
   
“For?”  
   
“For not leaving when uncle asked you to”, Laurent said directly. His hands were crossed over his book and his head was leaned against the pillow. He lacked the previous regality. With the low light and the night falling and the silence and the purple eye he almost looked… like a human being.  
   
Damen was taken aback. “What?”, he murmured without even planning to.  
   
Laurent grimaced. “Don’t make me say it again”.  
   
Damen smiled. “Well, you asked me not to”.  
   
“So I’m thanking you”.  
   
“You’re welcome?”, Damen replied, at a loss for what else to say.  
   
Laurent, his eyes still fixed on Damen’s, smiled, a small, shy smile which was barely the hint of one but which seemed genuine enough. Damen smiled back.  
   
A second later, the smile was gone. And without saying anything else, Laurent turned off the lamp of his side of the room and Damen found nothing but the small traces of light coming from his lamp reaching Laurent, painting him with tiny golden touches. Damen’s smile widened. In the dim light, he could barely make out the silhouette of his body and the features of his face, the shape of his jaw and the length of his hands. He fell asleep a couple of minutes later.  
   
******  
   
Damen couldn’t explain why he woke up at that hour. It wasn’t usual for him. He hated when waking up was like the strike of a lightning: sudden, without warning and blinding and rendering powerless in his presence. And then he felt the rumbling and lingering effects of the thunder. He opened his eyes and immediately recognized the light, blinding and rendering him powerless. In front of him, Laurent was sitting on his own bed, his eyes open. Damen squinted against the light, his eyes still too absorbed by darkness.  
   
“Laurent?”, he asked.  
   
Laurent replied with a sigh and nothing else.  
   
Damen sat up. He blinked once, twice before he could make out Laurent’s face, which was pale and warred by exertion. Laurent didn’t look at Damen.  
   
Damen stood up with a yawn. “Are you okay?”  
   
Laurent kept his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him, not facing Damen, who crouched right in front of him, studying his expression. “Laurent?”, he asked softly.  
   
Acting on mere impulse alone, he reached out and tucked a strand of Laurent’s hair behind his ear. Laurent’s eyes widened, and he flinched, recoiling from the touch, a sudden and horrible reaction. “Don’t. Touch. Me”.  
   
Damen closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry”.  
   
The silence stretched for a while. Damen kept his eyes closed for a moment.  
   
Laurent spoke first, a small, broken whisper. “Nightmare”, was all he said.  
   
Damen looked up and met those blue eyes, cold and tainted and almost dark in fear, stress, anxiety or something in between. He dragged a deep breath at the sight in front of him. Laurent, beautiful Laurent, cold and terrified and vulnerable and unreachable. Laurent, a paradox within itself. “What can I do to help you?”, he asked, as low as Laurent’s voice had been seconds before.  
   
“Nothing, just-”, Laurent shook his head. “Nothing”.  
   
“Want me to sit here?”, he said as he laid on the floor.  
   
Laurent shook his head.  
   
Damen felt at a loss. He didn’t know if he should sit or leave or go back to sleep. Laurent was so utterly _unpredictable_ that he just never knew where they stood. The silence and the intimacy of the moment was taking a toll on him and he couldn’t focus, not when he was sleep-muddled and sitting in front of the biggest and most enticing enigma he had ever faced.  
   
And so, he did the only thing he could possibly do. “See this scar?”, he pointed at a small line in his forearm.  
   
Laurent looked at him and then fixed his eyes on the scar, he nodded with a frown.  
   
“It’s the permanent reminder of one of the happiest days of my life”.  
   
Laurent stared at Damen, his face giving nothing away, but not rejecting him. It was clear if he didn’t want Damen to speak he would have done anything in his power to make his discomfort known. So Damen continued. “When I was a little kid, I used to stare at this huge willow in our backyard. It’s huge, 153 years old, dad told me when I first played around it, so I suppose it’s 170 years old by now. I spent all my childhood trying to climb it, and I never could. It took me years of practice and growing a _lot_ of strength, but on my eighth birthday I felt bold.  
   
“I walked towards it and as I did I thought of all those times my brother sat on one of its branches and told me to reach him and I couldn’t. And that pushed me forward. I climbed the tree. I wasn’t aiming for the smallest branches, no, I wanted to reach the tallest one, because I felt that if I did, I could touch the clouds, and I was dying to taste them. And so I reached the tallest branch and I looked up but the clouds were still too far away, then I looked forward and- I was speechless. Everything looked so _fucking_ huge and I was this small tiny dot staring at a huge ass rainbow in front of me and all the land ahead, in a thousand different shades of green, and the trees and the clouds. So I just sat there, transfixed. I knew I didn’t have long before mom and dad noticed and forced me to go back and probably punished me for it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then I heard a crackling noise. That’s the last thing I can remember”.  
   
Laurent broke in laughter. He covered his mouth to stifle the giggles but it was clear he was doing a pretty bad job at it. Damen smiled. “It wasn’t funny at the moment”.  
   
“Oh, that explains _so many_ things”, Laurent replied, the small, shy, reticent smile still plastered on his face.  
   
“I had to get surgery to fix my arm, and I had a pretty bad concussion. I actually had to skip school until the end of the year, and the teachers graded me out of pity”.  
   
Laurent laughed. “Then why the _hell_ was it one of the best days of your life?”, he asked, incredulously.  
   
“Because I felt free. Completely and utterly _free_ ”, Damen replied, “no expectations, no pressure, nothing upon me, nothing but land and rainbows and the whole universe in front of my eyes”.  
   
Laurent nodded. “I have never felt that, I think”.  
   
Damen remained silent, because he didn’t know what to say.  
   
“And I think a concussion and an arm surgery is too high a price for a fleeting, fake sensation of freedom”, Laurent retorted, but with any bite to it.  
   
“It was not”.  
   
“You romanticize everything. I don’t trust your word for it”.  
   
Damen smiled. “Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t”.  
   
“What did your brother do to you?”, Laurent asked, out of nowhere.  
   
Damen’s smile vanished. He dragged a deep breath. He _wished_ he could tell Laurent, but the ghost of it was haunting him, and he couldn’t, he couldn’t allow the darkness to reach him again, to claim him back. He knew he was standing right by the edge of the cliff. He couldn’t fall once more. Not again. Silently, he shook his head. “I can’t”, he said, and it came out broken and helpless and Damen desperately wanted to take it back, because he knew Laurent would use it, Laurent would prod at it, stab him with it, remind him over and over again why he should have never trusted him in the first place.  
   
But Laurent just nodded and looked away, perhaps sensing that Damen needed a moment to gain back his composure. Damen stared at him in surprise, unable to hide his emotions. He knew he was an open book for Laurent but he’d already dealt with the consequences of it and if that was the price he had to pay for getting the chance to actually _talk_ to him, then so be it.  
   
He pulled himself together and Laurent buried himself under his blankets. Damen stood up. “My uncle’s visit was the one which triggered the nightmare”, Laurent whispered.  
   
Damen turned to look at him in shock. Laurent kept his eyes on the ceiling, not daring a glance at Damen. “Oh”.  
   
“We… don’t get along. It is not… easy for me to deal with him, for a number of reasons I won’t delve into at three in the morning”.  
   
“It’s alright. You don’t have to. Ever”.  
   
Laurent shrugged. “I just thought you should know. It’s the least I could give you. An explanation”.  
   
“I don’t need one”.  
   
“But-”  
   
“No. Listen to me, Laurent”, Damen interrupted him, sitting on his own bed and looking dead serious, “You don’t need to apologize, you don’t need to feel guilty. It’s okay. I don’t mind. I won’t say anything, I won’t do anything. If you don’t trust me with anything else, at least you can trust me with this, I swear”.  
   
“I believe you”, Laurent said simply.  
   
“Good”.  
   
*******  
   
It was the first day of snow in a Winter that had been mostly cloudy and lifeless. And among the white and the cold and the Christmas lights and the carols and the mood that he could almost _breathe_ and which seemed to be infiltrating itself in literally all layers of life itself, Damen felt anything but festive. They were one week away from the winter break and he was already wondering if he was going to even make it to the end because days felt like entire weeks squished together. And everyone’s excitement around the festivities only made him feel worse. He had never been so _grinch-y_ in his life before, but this year he certainly had nothing to look forward to, nothing he could expect.  
   
At least having someone with whom he could share his misery was a good thing, and Laurent truly was more miserable than him. He had started walking by himself and had even gotten out, making it to the infirmary to beg Halvik to allow him to go back to class because he was _fine_ to no avail at all and he was desperate to go back to study. Laurent in a bad mood was not very different from Laurent in a good mood, but there was something in his insults, something in his gaze, something in his aura that showed that he really intended to _harm_. And Damen was not in the mood to put up with that so he spent most of his time avoiding their room and acknowledging his existence at all.  
   
Until he walked into the library and found Laurent trying to cover himself with a book to avoid being seen by Damen as he passed by his table while looking for a Biology book.  
   
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”, Damen murmured after he found the book, taking a seat next to him in the table.  
   
Laurent kept reading his book intently. “Whatever do you mean?”, he asked nonchalantly.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. “You’re supposed to be resting”.  
   
“I am resting”.  
   
Damen was about to protest when he felt a kick on his shin. “Aw!”, he turned to look behind him, where the kick had come from.  
   
And found Nicaise staring at him with a smile on his face that was anything but friendly. “You’re in my seat, giant”.  
   
Damen glared at him. Eyeing Nicaise warily, he stood up and moved to the chair placed at the right of Laurent, who smiled and winked at Nicaise as soon as the boy sat on his chair.  
   
“I’m helping Nicaise with his homework”, Laurent said, his attention still fixed on his book.  
   
“Demons have to do the homework?”, Damen asked.  
   
Nicaise was about to reply but Laurent interrupted him with a glance. “Yes. Until they graduate from high school”.  
   
Nicaise shook his head with a sigh and went back to his homework stubbornly. Damen smiled. There was something about this boy that he liked, maybe it was his straightforwardness or his bravery, but he could see why Laurent loved him the way he did. And that was a surprise in itself.  
   
Laurent had a very particular expression when he focused on something too hard. Damen enjoyed that look on his face, and he took the moment to appreciate his profile, staring at him with a smile on his own face he couldn’t quite manage to vanish. After a couple of seconds, Laurent put the book down and raised an eyebrow. “What are you looking at?”, he asked Damen, defensively.  
   
Damen smiled and shook his head. “What if Halvik finds you here?”  
   
“I think a doctor has more important things to do than to wander around the school checking to see if the students are following her instructions”.  
   
“What if I tell her?”  
   
“You won’t”.  
   
“Really? What makes you think I won’t?”, he said leaning closer towards Laurent.  
   
Laurent dragged a short breath and was about to reply when Nicaise looked up from his book. “You have no idea how close I am to stabbing you both with this pencil I just sharpened and leave permanent bruises, so can you just _shut the fuck up_?”, he said it louder than he intended to and the librarian glared at him.  
   
“Is he always like this?”, Damen whispered in Laurent’s ears when Nicaise returned to his notebook.  
   
“Yes, but not with me, so it’s always fun to watch it from afar”, Laurent said with a glint on his eyes.  
   
Damen smiled and shook his head. “I can imagine you being just like him when you grew up”.  
   
The glint was gone. It was replaced so suddenly that if Damen had blinked, he would have missed it. Where there had been a light and sun and yellow, there was now ice, cold and dark. Damen frowned. “No. I was not like him”.  
   
Damen swallowed and could barely manage to nod before he returned to the book he’d taken, at a loss of what to say. He felt like words would not do justice to whatever was going through Laurent’s mind.  
   
He pretended to be focused on reading the biology book for a couple of minutes before Laurent put his own book down and turned to look at him with a long-suffering sigh. “Stop doing that”, he said simply.  
   
Damen looked up from his book. “What do you mean?”  
   
“Stop acting like I’m going to break at any second”, Laurent said seriously.  
   
Damen smiled and looked down, shaking his head. He could see Laurent’s frown from the corner of his eye. “No, you got that wrong”.  
   
“Oh?”  
   
“I’m not acting like you’re going to break at any second. I’m acting like you’re going to break me at any second”.  
   
Laurent blinked. Damen kept his eyes fixed on him. Laurent blinked again. Damen rose an eyebrow. “That’s not going to happen”, Laurent replied, “you’re too much of a giant for me to succeed, either way”.  
   
“I can tell for a fact, it is _certainly_ going to happen”.  
   
“But then I’ll become predictable, and I’m anything but it”.  
   
“Yes, the less predictable thing you could possibly do would be to actually be nice to me”.  
   
“You’re only saying it because you want me to be nice with you”.  
   
“What gave me away?”, Damen asked.  
   
Laurent smiled. A small smile which was interrupted by Nicaise hushing them loudly and shaking his head before returning to his homework. Laurent rolled his eyes.  
   
He then looked at Damen’s book on the table and rose his eyebrows. “Wait a second. You’re actually _reading_ something? That _is_ surprising!”  
   
Damen glared. “You couldn’t even be nice for a minute”.  
   
Laurent moved closer and looked at what Damen was reading.  
   
“Deciduous”, Damen murmured as soon as Laurent came closer to him.  
   
Laurent looked up to him and the corners of his lips lifted, just a little bit. “It took you reading a whole book on the subject to finally be able to pronounce the word”, he said with a smug look on his face, “but now that you’ve managed to learn that word, we do have a project to work on. Are you comfortable actually getting the work done in the library? You seem slightly… _out of place_ in here”.  
   
“You _are_ out of place in here. You should be resting”.  
   
“If I have more rest, I’ll die”.  
   
“Sounds like a neat idea to me”, Damen replied.  
   
Laurent stood up without acknowledging Damen’s last remark and took one of the library’s laptops. He opened it and created a new Word document. “How about we organize the structure today? So we’ll know what we’ll do, and we’ll work from there”.  
   
Damen nodded and they spent the next hour brainstorming ideas about how they could do the final project. Surprisingly enough, they didn’t fight a single time during that time, and focused solely on the work they had to get done.  
   
Nicaise stopped them every now and then, asking Laurent questions about The Illiad, the book he was reading for English class. Laurent would always take his time with the explanations and Nicaise looked at him intently, no bite behind it all, just genuine curiosity and interest on learning. Damen smiled when he saw them interacting that way, and couldn’t help but feel in awe about Laurent, realizing that he was getting to see a side of Laurent he’d never had even caught a glimpse of before. And it changed all the variables, it shifted the possibilities, the odds, the puzzle.  
   
“What?”, Laurent asked when he caught Damen’s eyes.  
   
“You’re so nice to him”, Damen said absentmindedly.  
   
Laurent sat up and cleared his throat, his cheeks reddening a little. He clearly hadn’t expected Damen to say _that._ “Well, he just kicked you in the shin, so he deserved a reward for it”.  
   
Damen shook his head in disbelief, the smile still plastered on his face.  
   
“Woah, woah, wait a second”, Nicaise interrupted them loudly, his attention fixed on the book. Damen and Laurent both turned to look at him, startled. Nicaise put the book down and stared at them in shock. “Achilles and Patroclus were lovers?”, he asked in disbelief.  
   
Damen and Laurent both nodded at the same time, almost laughing at Nicaise’s reaction. “Do you really think that the greatest warrior of all would react like that to losing a _bro?_ They were madly in love with one another!”, Damen said.  
   
Laurent stared at Damen for a moment before turning to look at Nicaise again. “It _is_ widely believed that Achilles’ grief is only comparable to that of losing a soulmate, the love of his life. But of course, old historians want to make you believe otherwise and tell you they were just ‘friends’ because _obviously_ friends would ask to have their ashes mixed together so they are linked for eternity. I can assure you it gets more interesting -and sadder- if you read it as a tragic love story”.  
   
Nicaise grimaced. “You’re so cheesy, it’s disgusting”, he turned over a page, fixing his attention once again on the story, “but I like them”, he said quietly.  
   
Laurent returned to the book he’d been looking at and Damen couldn’t help but whisper into his ear. “Never took you as a romantic”.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “What the _hell_ can possibly be romantic about Patroclus and Achilles’ fate? If anything, it’s an excellent lesson on why _not_ to fall prey to your instincts and emotions. Never let the heart overcome the mind. Easy as that”.  
   
Damen exhaled loudly. “If you say so”, he said, sounding slightly disappointed.  
   
Laurent took a couple of seconds to put himself together and chose to change the topic. “We should start working on this today”, he said, pointing with his chin at the Word document he’d opened.  
   
Damen sighed. “The project isn’t due until after Christmas break, Laurent”.  
   
Laurent’s expression darkened, and suddenly his attention seemed to be placed somewhere else, somewhere Damen couldn’t follow, couldn’t even know how to reach, for it seemed to be a labyrinth in itself, a labyrinth of thoughts and worries and questions, a labyrinth not even Laurent himself seemed to be able to get out from. Laurent was suddenly trapped within the burdens of his own mind.  
   
Damen cleared his throat. Laurent fixed his eyes on him, his expression unreadable. “But, erm- by all means, I grant you the permission to make my break a living hell. For the sake of the project, of course”.  
   
“Of course”.  
   
“I mean, I’m already used to you doing that either way, so-”  
   
“So you wouldn’t lose the habit?”  
   
“And god forbid that from ever happening”.  
   
Laurent smiled, a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and which didn’t convey any actual happiness. If anything, Laurent looked only more uncomfortable. “I don’t like Christmas”, he said simply.  
   
“Neither do I”, _haven’t for a long time, since our parents died, but haven’t felt it with such intensity as I am feeling it this year and it’s consuming me. And I have nothing and no one to spend it with, for the first time in my life and it’s terrifying and I just want to fall asleep and wake up in January and pretend that Christmases are cancelled from now onwards because I don’t know if I’ll get to survive another December like this and I hate this horrible feeling in the back of my head which yells at me that it will always be like this, that it will not get better, that life will only be a succession of terrible, dark, cold and lonely Christmases and then that will be it,_ he didn’t say _._  
  
And yet, the way Laurent stared at him was as if he _knew,_ as if he could understand, as if he felt it too, as if the feeling was beyond words, but rather like written in the air itself. “Finally, something we can agree on”.  
  
“Call it a Christmas miracle”, Damen replied.  



	12. Chapter 12

Christmas break came earlier than Damen expected or even wished to.  
  
“You know you can stay with us, don’t you?”, Nik asked Damen as he helped him pack his bags.  
   
Damen smiled at him, a smile which didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course I do, Nik”, he replied, tucking a t-shirt into his bag, “but this is something I have to do”.  
   
Nik shrugged. “Just text me if you start feeling like shit”.  
   
“Of course I’ll do”, he said, knowing well that it was a very possible possibility that he would feel like shit at some point during the break, staying alone at his family house.  
   
“Yes, just like you did over the Summer”, Nik replied bitterly, filled with sarcasm.  
   
Damen groaned. “You’re not letting it go, are you?”  
   
Nik shook his head and decided to change the topic. “We _will_ go to your house on Christmas day, though. You won’t spend it alone, Damianos”.  
   
“And I certainly extend that self-invitation you just did  to my house”.  
   
Nik smiled at him. “You better, asshole”.  
  
They were still packing when Laurent walked in carrying a bunch of books in his arms. “Ugh”, Damen heard Nik saying next to him and he elbowed him. Nik glared at him before fixing his glare on Laurent.  
   
Damen realized then of the weight Laurent was carrying and ran to help him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”, he asked, extending his arms to help Laurent.  
   
“I don’t need your help, Damianos”, Laurent dismissed him a little breathlessly. “But thank you for the offer”.  
   
Nik frowned at the display of manners coming from Laurent.  
   
Laurent walked the last couple of steps towards his bed and threw the books, trying to recover his breath. He looked slightly paler than usual, which was saying a lot. “You carried them all the way from the library?”, Damen asked angrily.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “The books _we_ needed for _our_ Biology project? Yes, I did”.  
   
“Why didn’t you tell me? Fuck Laurent! You still haven’t recovered from Govart’s beating!”  
  
“Of course I have! I was fine the next day”, Laurent replied stubbornly. “It’s not my fault everyone else overreacted about it!”  
   
“You’re impossible”, Damen replied, returning to his packing and ignoring Laurent, who had to sit on the bed to regain his breath.  
   
“What brings you here yet again, Nikandros?”, Laurent asked with a fake smile on his face.  
   
Nik returned the fake smile. “Couldn’t wait to see your pretty face, Laurent”.  
   
“You could have been useful for once in your life and actually look for my pretty face at the library to help me carry these books”.  
   
Nik rolled his eyes and ignored him. “But then you wouldn’t have the chance to show Damen how _strong_ you were”.  
   
Damen covered his mouth with his hand to stifle his laughs.  
   
Laurent leaned against the bed but chose not to reply. He pointedly ignored the two of them and fixed his attention on his phone.  
   
“You did it, Nik. You finally shut him up”, Damen told Nik, good-naturedly.  
   
A second later, Damen felt something kicking him on the head, he turned to see one of Laurent’s shoes falling to the ground. “What the _fuck,_ Laurent?”  
   
“Or I could also do that”, Laurent replied with a wide smile, putting on his best show and managing to look quite innocent.  
   
“Do you want another kick in the stomach? Because I will gladly do it”, Nik said walking towards Laurent.  
   
“I would certainly love to see you making an embarrassment of yourself so, please, by all means, I invite you to try”.  
   
“Was that what you told Govart?”, Nik asked, getting closer to Laurent.  
   
Damen stopped Nik by putting a hand on his chest. “Okay! Okay!”, Damen said, trying to stop them both. “You honestly look stupid with all this trashtalk. Stop it”.  
   
Nik shrugged. “He started it”.  
   
“Did I?”  
   
“Shut the fuck up!, Both of you!”, Damen said, putting his arms between both of them.  
  
Laurent returned to his phone calmly. Nik, on the other hand, was breathing hard with rage, and staring at Damen as if he wanted to kill him.  
   
Damen sat on his own bed and rubbed his forehead. “Oh fuck, you’re making me _crave_ the solitude of my own house so I can get away from this mess”.  
  
Nik sat on Damen’s bed and ignored Laurent, who paid them both no mind.  
   
After Nik left, Laurent stood up to pack his own bag. “So what are your plans for Christmas break?”, Damen asked him conversationally, “are you traveling somewhere?”  
   
Laurent turned to look at him. “Just having lots of fun at my uncle’s house. Can’t wait”, he replied sarcastically, clearly not feeling in a good mood at all. “What about you?”, he asked.  
   
“Alone at my house, probably crying myself to sleep”.  
   
“I would pay to watch that, _that_ would be fun”, Laurent said, throwing him the biggest fake smile he could muster.  
   
Damen was about to retort back when the door opened widely and Nicaise walked in, carrying a huge bag which he threw over Laurent’s bed before throwing himself over Damen’s bed. “I could have used a fucking hand carrying all this shit, you know”, he said sharply at Laurent.  
   
“You could have asked”, Laurent replied, unmoving.  
   
Nicaise looked around and realized he was laying over Damen’s bed. “Yikes”, he exclaimed, “take that away from me, you giant”, he said throwing Damen one of his t-shirts, which landed unceremoniously over Damen’s head. Laurent laughed.  
   
“It’s good to see you too, kid”, Damen said, rolling his eyes, as he took the shirt off his face.  
   
“Don’t call me kid”, Nicaise replied bluntly.  
   
“I’ll stop when you stop calling me giant”.  
   
Nicaise sighed dramatically and slumped over the bed again. “Fine, I’ll stop calling you giant, _brute_ ”.  
   
Laurent snorted. Damen turned to look at him with a frown. Laurent shrugged. “What? He did as you asked”, he asked, feigning innocence.  
   
“You told him to call me that, didn’t you?”, Damen asked, pointing at Laurent, who shook his head innocently. Nicaise watched the exchange and laughed. It was the first time Damen had seen him like that and he realized it was the first time he’d actually seen him behaving like the child he was. It was as if he’d been forced to grow up too soon, to face a world he wasn’t prepared for. He could tell that Laurent thought the same, whenever he looked at Nicaise, and he also managed to catch a sight of remorse in his eyes, mixed with a deep sadness that Damen didn’t even know how to understand. He sat next to where Nicaise’s head was laying, as the kid stared fixedly at his phone.  
   
“What did you ask for Christmas, Nicaise?”, Damen asked him.  
   
Nicaise put the phone down and stared at Damen in wonder, but Damen didn’t flinch, he kept his eyes fixed on him. Laurent was silently watching them. “An Xbox”, he replied, his eyes roaming back to his phone.  
   
Damen nodded, at a loss of what else to say. Laurent went back to packing, still silent. However, every now and then, Damen would catch him staring at him. After a while, Damen realized that Nicaise had fallen asleep over his bed.  
   
Laurent finished packing and grabbed his bag and Nicaise’s. He then walked towards Nicaise and shook him softly, whispering into his ear, asking him to wake up. Nicaise groaned a “fuck you” and Damen and Laurent laughed softly, before the boy stood up with a yawn.  
   
“We have to go”, Laurent told Nicaise, “I already requested the taxi”.  
   
Nicaise slumped back into bed, still sounding sleepy. “Mmm, don’t want to”.  
   
“We have to”.  
   
“I don’t like uncle”, Nicaise said, his voice on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness.  
   
“Neither do I”, Laurent replied, but before he could say anything else, his phone rang. He picked up, exchanged a couple of words and shook Nicaise a bit harder, “the taxi is here”.  
   
Nicaise stood up angrily and walked towards the door.  
   
Damen stood up as well and turned to look at Laurent, “let me help you with his bag”.  
   
Laurent stood thinkingly for a while before nodding. “Thanks”.  
   
“No problem”, Damen replied, surprised at how easily Laurent had thanked him.  
   
The three of them walked towards the cab. Nicaise turned to look at Damen, “thanks for carrying that for me, _Damianos_ ”, he said his name with a roll of his eyes.  
   
Damen smiled fondly at him. “You’re welcome, _Nicaise”,_ he replied, ruffling the boy’s head.  
   
Nicaise took his hand off forcefully and pointed at him. “If you do that again, I’ll stab you with a fork”, he said menacingly before getting into the cab.  
   
Laurent smiled. Damen looked around, feeling slightly awkward, not quite knowing what to tell him. “Erm- good luck with your uncle and um, Merry Christmas, I guess”.  
   
Laurent nodded. “Good luck with the crying by yourself to sleep. Send me some pics or a video, that would keep me laughing the whole break”.  
   
Damen snorted. He looked up and found Laurent’s blue eyes fixed on him and _God,_ the thought came almost automatically to him, without even realizing, without taking the time for his brain to process it. He wanted to get lost in the blue of his eyes. Hm… that couldn’t be good. He pushed the thought aside and shook his head, forcing himself to save that intrusive idea for later. “I’ll annoy you to talk about the project”.  
   
“Yes, I’ve mentally prepared myself for that already”, Laurent told him.  
   
“Remember the truce”.  
   
“The truce is over after Christmas break”, Laurent said, “that was what we’d agreed on, wasn’t it?”  
   
Damen felt a bit -or _very_ \- disappointed, but he managed to nod. “That was what we agreed on”.  
   
“Goodbye, Damianos”.  
   
Damen took a moment to think that, even though he absolutely hated to admit it, he was going to miss Laurent for the next couple of weeks. He was going to miss him in a way he shouldn’t have, in a way he shouldn’t miss his asshole of a roommate.  
   
He sighed, catching the last glimpse of the strands of blond hair as they got lost inside the taxi. “Goodbye, Laurent”, he whispered as he closed the door in front of him.  
   
*********  
   
His family house had Kastor’s traces all over the place. Damen could almost _smell_ his presence, _listen_ to the thousand memories they’d lived there together, and _touch_ the pain of his brother’s betrayal.  
   
He knew it was going to be difficult, walking into their house after that awful summer.  
   
But as he walked in, he realized that the ache wasn’t because of all the small reminders of his brother’s presence, it was because of the small reminders of his brother’s _absence,_ and what that absence meant: a burning reminder of solitude, a reminder he’d left behind some months ago when he’d been so distracted by Laurent’s presence he’d forgotten life could be like _this._  
   
And it was true. Amidst the football and the lunch breaks and the fighting with his roommate, Damen had found another version of reality, he’d realized that there was another way, but standing there, in front of the staircase which led to the second floor and knowing that it took him 13 stairs and 29 steps plus a turn to the left to reach what used to be his brother’s room, he thought that _this_ reality was always looming over him, just waiting patiently to be acknowledged, the one constant in the middle of the twists and turns his life had taken. You’ll always have this: an empty house to walk into that will surely make you feel like utter and complete shit. And that is the only certainty.  
   
He’d felt that aching void since his parents died and him and his brother had walked in to find a house which _exhaled_ their parent’s presence. And thus, in every single way, this house was noting but a monument to every single thing Damen had lost.  
   
And suddenly, it was too much.  
   
He dropped his bags and climbed the 13 flights of stairs and then he took 29 steps in a rush and even though his brain screamed at him to turn to the left, he turned to the right and found himself inside his own bedroom, right across Kastor’s. He sat on the bed and tried to control his breathing, covering his eyes and pressing on them hardly, desperately trying to block the tears that were threatening to spill and flood everything within their reach.  
   
He took a couple of shuddering breaths until he started to calm down.  
   
He knew it was going to be difficult. But we always pretend like we can _endure_ difficult once we’re not facing it, only to realize when we finally do face it that there was a reason why we knew it would be difficult in the first place, and Damen was sitting there wondering if he would manage to endure it all.  
   
He turned on his tv and put on some Netflix, desperately trying to divert his mind somewhere else. He fell asleep eventually, and in that moment in-between consciousness and unconsciousness, Damen’s only thought was that it would _always_ be like this. Him trying to escape from this reality, and just pretending to endure it one day at a time. He would survive this long-ass Christmas break. He had to.  
   
*****  
   
And so, he spent the next couple of days cleaning the house. If anything, playing loud music while he vacuumed managed to distract him from what he was cleaning, and before he realized, most of the house was spotless. Still, Kastor’s bedroom was left. It was stupid, he knew, that he kept grieving his brother as if he’d died, but it felt as if there was a void in his heart he just didn’t know how to fulfill.  
   
He walked into his room, which he’d kept locked since the first night he spent at their house, to find it mostly empty, which of course, wasn’t a surprise, for he’d moved in with Jokaste months ago, during the Summer, while Damen was still there, because they were a couple of assholes who gave absolutely no fucks about him or his feelings.  
   
He sighed and turned up the volume of the music player.  
   
And then he threw everything that was left in the room to the garbage.  
   
And he felt slightly relieved after that.  
   
When he was done, he came back to his room. Once he had nothing else to think about, his thoughts diverted…  
   
He was prepared to torment himself with memories of Jokaste and her scent and her smile and that small relieved sigh she always produced after they had sex, but it was a blurry memory, as if it’d been swept away by another all-consuming memory that was powerful enough to destroy everything else. And thus, he was struck with a touch of light and gold against ivory and his shy smile and his deep blue eyes and the way he tucked his strands of hair behind his ear when he didn’t know how to reply and the way he bit his lip whenever he took a calculating second to think about his retorts and-  
   
And he shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be thinking about Laurent like this.  
   
He stared at the ceiling, forcing himself to not think about Laurent, what the hell was wrong with him?  
   
He pulled out his phone. The impulse to text him was driving him mad. He wanted to know how he was and if the bruise Govart had left on his stomach had faded and if it still hurt to carry heavy objects and if he was okay and if he needed to talk to someone and if his uncle was giving him hell and that he could come here and they could give each other company…or hell, but at least they’d be together, and he missed him and he wanted to punch himself right in the face for even thinking about all of this.  
   
He texted Nik instead.  
   
He spent the days before Christmas doing some last-minute Christmas shopping. Nik and his mom were coming to his house (which, for the first time ever, wasn’t holding a giant Christmas tree in the middle of the living room) and so he got them presents. He bought something for Pallas and for Erasmus and debated endlessly with himself about whether or not he should get Laurent a Christmas present.  
   
And that was another battle he lost. He didn’t get any presents for Kastor nor for Jokaste.  
   
On Christmas Eve, he was sitting at his living room watching a marathon of Home Alone, and he hated how fitting the title was for his current situation. It was awfully silent at their home, and he was attacked by the ghosts of past memories, of majestic Christmas parties at their house, of music and dancing and eating a lot and his parents laughing and feeling _so very much_ alive.  
   
The next day, Nik and his mom came in with loaded arms, carrying presents and lots of food. Damen, who was always fond of cooking, helped Nik’s mom at the kitchen and they cooked the Christmas dinner together. They exchanged gifts and talked for hours and hours over several bottles of wine about their lives. At one point the topic of Kastor came and Nik’s mom looked positively ready to stand up and kick some butts as she found out about what had happened, which couldn’t help but make Damen feel slightly better. Then the topic of school arose, and with it, inevitably, the topic of Laurent. Was he the one who had brought him up? He couldn’t remember. He told Nik’s mom all about it and she looked somewhere between endlessly frustrated and about to crack in laughter.  
   
And once again, his thoughts diverted back to Laurent.  
   
After asking questions about Nik’s love life, while he insisted that he didn’t like anyone over and over and she looked at Damen as if wondering if they were keeping something from her and Nik rubbed his neck uncomfortably, which left Damen wondering because he knew Nik and he _knew_ immediately that he was hiding something from him and he would give him hell for it, the two of them decided it was time to go. He was endlessly thankful to Nik and his mom for making his holidays slightly more endurable, because every time he sat at the table with them it was like this: as if the distant, blurry image of what it was like to have a family suddenly came back to life. And the memory of his parents suddenly didn’t hurt as much, neither did his brother’s betrayal. He wasn’t alone. Not always. He didn’t have to be.  
   
And after a while, Damen was, once again, alone with his thoughts. And thoughts and wine were certainly not a good mix. So, before he could second-guess himself about it, he took out his phone and wrote Laurent a text:  
   
_Merry Christmas, you insufferable idiot._  
  
He _wanted_ to hate Laurent, so badly, but truth was that the more he tried to shy away from him, the closer he wanted to get, and he _ached_ to touch him and see his smile and just be close to him, in whichever way he wanted him to be. And… fuck he didn’t want to think about it.  
   
A couple of minutes later, his phone rang with a new text. He couldn’t unlock the screen fast enough.  
   
_Merry Christmas, giant brute._  
  
Damen smiled despite himself. Then the smile turned into a grin and Damen was laughing in his bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering since when he’d smiled at being called a giant brute, but he knew somehow that now Laurent’s words had no true bite behind them.  
   
Wine and late at night were not a good mix either, and he fell asleep soon, a deep and intense sleep that was filled with images and memories that he couldn’t recognize nor differentiate.  
   
   
******  
   
He woke up a couple of hours later without understanding why, and feeling an intense headache which reminded him that wine and hungover were not a good mix either. Then he realized why he’d woken up as he felt his phone vibrating against his chest.  
   
He picked it up, squinting at the light coming from the screen. “Hello?”, he said without even checking who it was from.  
   
“Damen?”  
   
Damen sat up, his eyes opening immediately. “Laurent?”  
   
“Didn’t mean to wake you up”, Laurent said as he heard Damen’s voice.  
   
“What’s wrong?”, Damen asked immediately.  
   
“I-”, a small sigh, a moment of hesitation, he could almost hear Laurent biting his lip thoughtfully.  
   
“Just say it”.  
   
“Can we go to your house?”  
   
“What?”  
   
“ _Please_ ”, Laurent said in a voice tone which sounded so unlike him, that Damen felt all his senses heighten in alarm. “I- I have no one else to ask and I know it’s late and I don’t even deserve it but this is a matter of utmost urgency and-”  
   
“You’re asking me if you can come stay over at my house?”, Damen asked incredulously.  
   
Laurent cleared his throat. “I-”, he clearly felt uncomfortable saying it, “yes, please”.  
   
“Right now?”  
   
“ _Damen,_ I don’t have much time, please say yes or no”.  
   
“Of course”, Damen said, shaking himself out of his stupor.  
   
He could hear Laurent’s sigh of relief. “Thank you. Thank you”.  
   
“Sure. I- I’ll text you the address, fine?”  
   
“Yes. Good, I’ll see you then”.  
   
Damen hung up and stared at his own screen, trying to understand what the hell had just happened.  
 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since you've been so nice and adorable, here's the update, one day earlier! I hope you like it! Thank you so so much for your comments and kudos, they make me so happy! See you next week x

There was something oddly familiar and incredibly striking at seeing Laurent deVere in the moonlight. And if Damianos would have had a couple of seconds more to stare at him, he would have marveled at the way his hair was lit up by the strikes of light coming from the streets, and yet his shadow managed to form a perfect silhouette. But as he fixed his eyes on him, he also managed to recognize the darkness surrounding the light blue of his eyes and the paleness of his lips. Something was _wrong,_ he could tell as soon as he saw him getting out of the cab.  
   
And he could only confirm it when he saw Nicaise getting out hurriedly as well, as they looked everywhere, in alert, as if they were being followed by someone or something.  
   
He rushed towards them and helped them with their bags as Laurent paid the driver. Their eyes met. “Hi”, Laurent whispered as soon as he saw him.  
   
“Hi”, Damen replied with a smile, unable to mutter anything else. He took their bags inside in a rush and a minute later he was sitting with Laurent and Nicaise at his very own living room. He sat on the couch with a sigh.  
   
“Thank you for receiving us. I wouldn’t have called you if this wasn’t an emergency”, Laurent said, matter-of-factly.  
   
“Is everything alright, Laurent?”  
   
Laurent seemed to have been distracted for a second and then he fixed his eyes on Damen once again. “Hm? Oh, um, yes, everything is okay just-”  
   
“Uncle being a bitch”, Nicaise supplied.  
   
Damen fixed his attention on him. Nicaise was sitting nervously, a sight he hadn’t seen before and which, to be honest, worried him a little.  
   
“He’s more of a dick when he drinks and he drank all day long. He… um, he gets violent”.  
   
Laurent cleared his throat as if asking Nicaise to stop sharing information. Nicaise nodded and kept looking down.  
   
Damen only managed to produce a soft smile at them. “Well you’re safe now, I suppose”.  
   
Laurent seemed utterly uncomfortable of being at Damen’s house, prying and asking him to stay there. Damen wanted to reassure him but he knew there was no way he could, not really. “We can sleep on the couch, or on the carpet, or… wherever, truly”.  
   
Damen smiled and shook his head. “No, no. There’s enough space for both of you. This house is far too big just for me either way. You can each get a room, or if you’d prefer to sleep in the same room there’d be no-”  
   
Nicaise groaned. “No, please, Laurent never sleeps”.  
   
Laurent crossed his arms over himself. “That’s because you’re always kicking me in your sleep”.  
   
“That’s because you DON’T TURN OFF THE LIGHT OF YOUR LAMP AND YOU READ UNTIL THREE IN THE MORNING!”  
   
Laurent sighed. “Fine! Two bedrooms will do, _please_ ”, he didn’t sound amused, he just sounded exhausted, as if fighting with Nicaise was far too much work for him at the moment. That was interesting, Damen thought, for Laurent didn’t shy away from an argument if he had any say on it.  
   
Damen nodded. “Okay, I’ll show you to your room, kid”.  
   
Nicaise turned to look at him with murderous eyes. Damen rose his hands. “Fine, fine, I’ll show you to your room, _Nicaise_ ”.  
   
Nicaise nodded and walked with Damen, who felt silently relieved that he’d thought about cleaning the place earlier in the week. His parents had three guest rooms which were usually not enough after the parties they hosted, so space was certainly not a problem. As soon as he showed Nicaise his room, the boy threw himself over the bed. “Thank you, giant”, he whispered against the sheets.  
   
“Are you alright? Do you need anything else?”  
   
Nicaise shook his head. “Merry Christmas, you filthy animal”.  
   
Damen actually _laughed_ and he realized that Nicaise had done so too. “You _are_ a lot like Kevin, aren’t you? I was planning on another Home Alone marathon but I won’t give you any more ideas about what to do in this place”.  
   
Nicaise smiled. “Probably for the best”, he said with a shrug.  
   
“Goodnight kid”, Damen said with a smile, closing the door behind him.  
   
When he came back to the living room, Laurent was stacking their bags in a pile at the corner. “Drop that”.  
   
“I don’t mean to intrude”.  
   
“You’re not, Laurent”.  
   
Laurent sighed and went back to the couch. He collapsed against it unceremoniously, and it was the only moment when he allowed his façade to slip, just a little. “Thank you for having us”.  
   
“You can stay for as long as you want”.  
   
Laurent rubbed his forehead. “I- I wish I didn’t have to, but I think I don’t have any other choice”.  
   
Damen desperately wanted to ask him what had happened but he knew better than that, and he knew that if Laurent chose to tell him, he would do so in his own terms, so he didn’t prod him.  
   
Silence was heavy against them, as it seemed to be a general rule between them recently.  
   
Laurent turned to look at him. “I was worried for Nicaise”.  
   
Damen stared back. “Why?”  
   
“When uncle drinks, he’s-”, he fell silent. Damen fixed his eyes on Laurent’s hands instead, as they moved slowly from Laurent’s lap towards the hem of his shirt. Damen frowned. Silently, Laurent lifted the hem of the shirt, slowly revealing a touch of ivory skin. Damen could look nowhere else, while his brain invaded him with interrogations. And then he noticed the contrast of purple against ivory. He sat up. He’d seen that wound on Laurent’s abdomen after Govart had kicked him, but this one seemed like it had been done recently. Damen fixed his eyes on it, and without even realizing he’d had, his fingers were softly touching the injury. He realized, a second later, that it was not a touch, it had been a caress and they both were very much aware of that. Damen squeezed his eyes closed and put his hand away. He wanted to _murder_ Laurent’s uncle.  
   
“He did this to you?”, Damen asked, breathlessly, feeling the anger piling up inside of him.  
   
Laurent pulled the shirt down and nodded.  
   
Damen stood up in a rush.  
   
Laurent simply stared at him.  
   
Damen’s thoughts were murderous. He paced from one side of the living room to the other. How dared he? How could he do that to Laurent?  
   
“Sit down, you’re making me dizzy”, Laurent said flatly, the moment of vulnerability gone as fast as it had arrived.  
   
Damen sat back down on the couch.  
   
“He’s usually very passive aggressive. But when he drinks, he’s just aggressive. So now you understand why I was worried for Nicaise. He collapsed after coming back from a dinner with his friends and we ran away”.  
   
“He didn’t do anything to Nicaise?”, Damen asked.  
   
Laurent shook his head. “But he would. It was just a matter of time”.  
   
Damen dragged a couple of deep breaths. “I’m sorry, Laurent”, he whispered.  
   
“I don’t need your pity. I just need you to understand that there is a reason why I’m doing this. The days of me torturing you needlessly are long past gone, and even if they weren’t, this wasn’t worth the effort”.  
   
Damen stared deep into his eyes. He tried desperately to lighten the mood, to make Laurent notice that that single second of vulnerability had changed nothing between them. “So now you’ll torture me with a purpose?”, he asked.  
   
Laurent was clearly not expecting that. He raised his eyebrows and a shy smile drew in the corner of his lips. “If you want to see the glass half-empty…”, he said.  
   
Damen smiled and leaned his head against the couch. “You can stay here, Laurent, until the end of the Christmas break. You both can”.  
   
“I- Damen, I, I should go back, but-”, Laurent was awfully hesitant at that moment.  
   
“No you shouldn’t. Fuck him and what he thinks. You’ll both be safe in here. And I wouldn’t mind the company, even if it’s coming from you”.  
   
Laurent smiled. “Does that mean I won’t get to see you crying yourself to sleep?”  
   
Damen shook his head, “I’m sorry to disappoint you”.  
   
“Damn it”, Laurent replied, feigning disappointment.  
   
Damen laughed. “So! You can choose between my parent’s room, my brother-the-dick’s empty room, or guests room number 2 or 3”.  
   
“You have _three_ guest rooms?”  
   
Damen nodded. “For all the parties I host”, he said at ease. Somehow, Laurent made it easier to talk about all of these topics.  
   
“Whichever is close to Nicaise’s”, Laurent replied.  
   
“Guest room number 2 it is, then”.  
   
Laurent smiled. “Thank you”.  
   
Damen dismissed it with his hand and walked him towards his room. Laurent looked around and put his bag next to the bed. “That’s it. Please tell me if you need anything else”.  
   
“Damen, wait”, Laurent called out to him.  
   
Damen turned and looked at him enquiringly.  
   
“Please, just, check the locks in your house. I-”, he ruffled his head, “he’s not a nice person”.  
   
“I will”, Damen replied.  
   
“Thank you”.  
   
Damen nodded.  
   
“Sorry for ruining your Christmas”.  
   
“My _very_ eventful Christmas”.  
   
“Very eventful, yeah, your breath smells of wine”.  
   
Damen was about to offer an explanation when he suddenly remembered, “Oh! Wait there!”, he told Laurent, “I’ll be back in a second”, he said as he rushed out the bedroom.  
   
He came back a minute later, a small package in his hands. Laurent sat at the end of the bed.  
   
“I was planning on giving it to you after Christmas break, but given the circumstances…”, he gave Laurent the small box wrapped in paper and with a bow. “…Merry Christmas Laurent”.  
   
Laurent took it with the utmost care and unwrapped it curiously. He opened the box and a small, shy smile adorned his features. “A cypress tree”, he whispered as he took the keychain off the box.  
   
“It reminded me of you”.  
   
Laurent stared at it, his fingers tracing the engraving of the little cypress tree. He was silent for a long while, and Damen wondered if it had been the right thing to do at all. After a moment of silent contemplation, all Laurent could say was whisper a small, “thank you”.  
   
“You’re welcome, Laurent”.  
   
 Laurent was still staring at the keychain and he looked visibly moved, which made Damen wonder what was going on in that head of his. He stood up instead. “Have a good night”.  
   
Laurent looked up and cleared his throat. “Thank you, Damen”, he said, taking the small keychain in both of his hands as if it was a precious object he wanted to keep close to him, “for everything”.  
   
Damen laughed softly.  
   
“What?”, Laurent asked him.  
   
“Nothing just-”, Damen rubbed the back of his neck, “I can only imagine how much you’re hating all this thanking me, so you don’t have to, just so you know”.  
   
“Call it a Christmas miracle, then”, Laurent replied at ease.  
   
“Good, then I’ll enjoy it while it lasts”.  
   
******  
   
He woke up next morning to the fading smell of pancakes and freshly brewed coffee and he immediately felt his appetite kicking up. He looked around his empty bedroom in confusion, momentarily forgetting where he was and who he was with. And then the thought hit him, like a thunder, like a lightning, like the storm in between: Laurent was in his house.  
   
He stood up in a rush. He walked towards the bathroom and tried to do something about his hair, which was stupid, because Laurent had seen him as he woke up for the last four months, they _did_ share a bedroom after all, but this was different. Damen couldn’t place why, it was the place, the moment, the secrets they were keeping for one another, his feelings… maybe a mix of all of those.  
   
He walked and listened to Nicaise’s voice at the dining room next to the kitchen. “Please, Lo, do you want me to keep begging?”, he said with a groan.  
   
“You will not beg to me nor to anyone. Never beg, Nicaise”, Laurent said sharply from the kitchen.  
   
“I’ll wash the dishes!”  
   
“You will have to either way”.  
   
Another groan. “What’s the point of giving me a Christmas present that I can’t actually _use?_ ”  
   
“You could stop complaining and be grateful about what you were given instead of goading because you can’t use it”.  
   
Damen chose that moment to walk in. “Good morning”, he said good-naturedly.  
   
Laurent, who was standing in the kitchen, turned to look at him. “Morning”, he said, turning back to fix his attention on the frying pans and the coffeemaker. “Sit down, breakfast will be there shortly”.  
   
Damen walked towards him. Laurent looked nice in a different setting, even though the injury in his stomach was very clearly hurting him, Damen could tell from the way he seemed to lean his weight on his right side. “You don’t have to do this, you know?”, he whispered.  
   
“It’s my way of thanking you”, Laurent replied, clearly unperturbed by their close proximity, “now go sit”.  
   
“Did you poison it?”  
   
“No poison around this house. You’re pathetic”.  
   
“Hmm… cooking breakfast for your worst enemy”, Damen said good-naturedly, “karma is being a bitch to you, Laurent”.  
   
“You clearly think too highly of yourself if you truly believe you could be my worst enemy”.  
   
Damen smiled and sat next to Nicaise, who was smiling at him with a fake smile that could mean nothing but trouble. “Hey, Damen, how did you sleep last night?”, he said, the hideous smile still plastered in his face.  
   
“What do you want, Nicaise?”, he asked.  
   
Nicaise was about to reply when Laurent walked in with the pancakes and the coffee. It smelled delicious.  
   
“I didn’t know you liked cooking”, Damen said as Laurent sat on the dining table.  
   
“I don’t”.  
   
Damen tried them. The pancakes were delicious. They had little chocolate chips and blueberries on them and a homemade syrup that was nothing like the maple syrup he bought at the mall. Damen loved it, but of course, he wouldn’t show Laurent just how much.  
   
Nicaise cleared his throat. “As I was saying-”, he started.  
   
Damen felt the table shifting as Laurent kicked Nicaise on the shin. “Ouch!”, Nicaise told Laurent, glaring at him.  
   
“No, you’re not saying”.  
   
“Wanna bet?”  
   
“Nicaise-”  
   
“Damen, can we install the Xbox on your living room tv?”, Nicaise said with a smirk as he asked the question, while Laurent stared at him through narrowed eyes.  
   
Damen turned to look at Laurent, a smile on his face. “You got him the Xbox?”  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes but nodded. “It was his Christmas present”.  
   
“Wonderful!”, Damen said excitedly, “of course we can plug it in, Nicaise!”  
   
Laurent shook his head. “I’d forgotten who I was talking to, of course you would say yes”.  
   
“I have Mario Karts and Fifa and Just Dance!”, Nicaise said with a big smile on his face. “And I haven’t even been able to unpack it, I just couldn’t wait more and I sneaked the console into our bags when Laurent told us we were leaving”.  
   
“Which, of course, is an act I reproach”, Laurent said seriously.  
   
“Yes because you’re boring, unlike Damen”.  
   
Damen’s eyes gleaned. “You heard that? I’m definitely _not_ boring Laurent!”  
   
Laurent crossed his arms, “yes, by a 12-year-old-boy’s standards”, he bit back.  
   
Damen ignored him and finished his breakfast fast so he could help Nicaise plug in the console.  
   
******  
   
Damen and Nicaise spent all day playing Xbox, while Laurent seemed to be in a sour mood. He pretended to be at ease, or as if staying at Damen’s house wasn’t a big deal, but Damen could see, in the small details, just how on edge he was by the whole situation. The way he looked through the windows and desperately unlocked and locked his phone could tell Damen that he was almost paranoid. Was he worried about their uncle? Could he really be that much of a threat for both of them? Damen felt like he was missing half of the story but he simply couldn’t bring himself around to ask the questions, not to Laurent.  
   
And so, they fell back into the same kind of routine they shared at their school. Laurent would read and wouldn’t talk much, Damen would focus on his business, and every now and then they’d engage in an argument or joke at one another. He was completely and utterly surprised at how easily they could slip into _this._ Nicaise, of course, was another major force to deal with, but Laurent and Damen had a dynamic that could only come after months of sharing a room and -willingly or not- getting to know each other.  
   
And that much was true. Damen knew far too much about Laurent already, which was one of the reasons why Laurent had stopped being a dick with him, and Damen was certain that Laurent knew far too much about him, things that he could easily use against him. And for a fleeting, ugly moment, Damen considered that Laurent _could_ use all of his knowledge against Damen, quite easily, in fact. He tried to push the thought away but realized that it was getting more and more difficult. Maybe it was his resemblance to Jokaste, or maybe because he was starting to feel for him something similar to what he’d once felt for her, but he couldn’t help but think: _you’ll break me. You’ll eventually break me and I’ll allow it._  
  
And he couldn’t not to.  
   
That night, when Laurent finally managed to send Nicaise to bed after threatening with hiding the Xbox, Damen came back to find him roaming around their studio.  
   
It was his father’s favorite place in the house. A place he would go to hide himself from the rest of the world. When he was a little kid, Damen would walk in and his father would pick him up and put him over his lap as he read him a book. It was the most peaceful room in the house, and by far, the one which reminded him the most about his father. It was as if tiny fractions of Theomedes’ essence were hidden between the pages of those books, as if by pulling them together he could define who his father was, who he had been. Touching the worn out covers and staring at the yellowed pages of the books was a way to feel his father’s presence. It was a need he often had, no matter how painful it was. And it still was.  
   
“My father was an avid reader”, Damen whispered, startling Laurent.  
   
“I can tell”, Laurent replied, in a whisper as well. It felt as if that was the only proper way to talk inside that room. “Clearly, you didn’t inherit that from him”.  
   
Damen rubbed the back of his head. “I’ve always been more interested in sports, but I’ve always had a weakness for Greek Mythology”.  
   
Laurent turned to look at him. “Did he read it to you?”  
   
Damen nodded. “It was his way of teaching me lessons. Normal parents would read their children Aesop’s fables, but Kastor and I grew up listening to the consequences of human hubris and Zeus’ semen”.  
   
Laurent actually _laughed_ at that.  
   
“Whenever he would reprimand me, he would call me into the studio and recite me another Greek myth. He had a myth for every situation I found myself in, so I used to grow weary, believing that every bad choice I took would end up with me being tied to a rock and an eagle coming by every day to feed off my liver”.  
   
Laurent shook his head with a smile. “My brother used to read those stories to me as well, when I was a little kid. I used to imagine these worlds, and they were _so_ real and so clear in my head, I could almost walk down Athens’ agora, I could almost sit at Mount Olympus, I could almost imagine myself fighting the minotaur, I could almost see the muses summoning in front of me”, he said, and then he continued walking, looking as if he’d shared more than he should have.  
   
Damen had a thousand questions in his mind, all of them involving Laurent’s brother. He kept them to himself. “So did I. I was in love with Artemis, I can vividly remember that much”.  
   
Laurent laughed and kept walking, his back to Damen, who could do nothing but follow.  
   
“How are you feeling?”  
   
“Wonderful”, Laurent replied, as he always did when Damen asked him.  
   
“And your injury?”  
   
“Healing”.  
   
“He won’t get either of you in here”.  
   
“I’m trying to convince myself of that”, he said, stopping dead, “I’m really trying, Damen”.  
                                                         
“But?”, Damen asked him, knowing that there was something beyond that expression.  
   
Laurent half-turned his face towards him, but Damen could only see a small fraction of his face, like a moon in quarter crescent. “But you don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s capable of, and I’d rather you didn’t ask”.  
   
“I won’t, then”.  
   
Laurent turned his back to Damen once again and kept walking down the library. His fingers skimmed softly through the spines of the oldest editions his father had kept in one of the shelves. His touch was feather-light, very similar to Damen’s caress against his abdomen the night before. Damen stared at his fingers in awe. The way his hands traced the ways into the books was like when a pianist sat in front of the instrument to perform a piece. His fingers played skillfully the notes of the melody, the silences, the adagios, the crescendos, as they rummaged through the book collection. It was as if his hands were designed to compose masterpieces.  
   
Laurent stopped short. Damen followed him with his gaze.  
   
“Ah, look at that”, Laurent said, taking one of the books off the shelf. “This one could be helpful”.  
   
Damen walked towards him and read the title. _Advanced Biological Concepts._  
   
Laurent stared at him with a small smile and pulled the little cypress tree keychain out of his pocket, hanging it in front of Damen. “We have a project to work on, remember?”  
   
Damen groaned.  
   
Laurent laughed.  
   
“It’s Christmas _break,_ we’re not supposed to be doing projects!”  
   
Laurent took the book and walked out of the library. “Come on, _partner_ ”, he said with a smug smile, “time to get to work”.  
   
“I _knew_ you would find a way to torture me”, Damen said as he followed him into the living room. Truth was, he couldn’t be more excited to be spending more seconds next to Laurent. Truth was, he shouldn’t be excited about spending more seconds next to Laurent. Truth was, every single rational thought had been wiped off his mind and replaced by the image of Laurent’s fingers against the spines of the books.  
   
Truth was, if Damen was perfectly honest with himself, it was time to admit he’d fallen for Laurent. He’d fallen _hard._ And he knew himself, and he knew that was the perfect tool Laurent could use to destroy him. And at the moment he couldn’t care less. He wanted to get loss amidst every tiny fraction of Laurent’s essence.  
   
And he was _so fucked._


	14. Chapter 14

Laurent had taken their samples with him.  
   
Laurent, smart, brilliant, wonderful Laurent hadn’t forgotten to take his samples with him, even though they left in a rush, even though he was worried, even though his abdomen was hurting, Laurent had taken their samples with him.  
   
And so, they were sitting at the table with a couple of books splayed in front of them and the leaves they’d taken off the trees, which were already pretty much dead, but still showing the traces of the colors they’d had when they’d been ripped, as if a fraction of life was still contained within their essence, as if they were still breathing somehow.  
   
No wonder why everyone sent flowers when people died.  
   
No wonder why Laurent hated that.  
   
No wonder why he loved the cypresses the way he did.  
   
They divided their work. Damen took the deciduous leaves and Laurent took the evergreens. Damen would frequently mix the leaves and forget which one was which, so he would have to show them to Laurent, who managed to name them with a single glance. It was amazing, truly, seeing him do that. “How _on Earth_ can you identify them?”  
   
Laurent shrugged. “It’s simple. You start by identifying the shape of the leaves. If they’re pointed or if they are oval-shaped or thin or wide. Then you identify the way in which they are attached to their twigs”, he said, standing and walking towards Damen, “see these ones? They are attached together, not all leaves are compound, some can only get attached directly towards the twig”, he took one of the _Cornus Florida_ they’d grabbed and stared at it, “and, of course, there’s also the color”, he said, pulling it closer for Damen to observe, “this velvety texture and deep red color tells us a lot about its pigments and obviously, it allows us to cross off the ones which tend to have a brown or yellowish pigment”.  
   
Damen grabbed the leave and stared at it fixedly. “Okay, I see”, he said as he observed them.  
   
“Careful!”, Laurent said, taking his hand off the leave, “your gigantic fingers could smash them easily”.  
   
“Hey!”, Damen replied, offended, turning to look at Laurent with a frown.  
   
And then it dawned on him. He felt Laurent’s fingers against his wrist. He hadn’t let go. In fact, he was only tightening his hold on Damen’s wrist.  
   
And Damen could _feel_ symphonies writing themselves at the precise point where skin met skin. He looked down and basked on the feeling for a moment. _A crescendo_ growing in intensity against his pulse which established a beat, too fast, faster than he wished to, for each beat exposed him further _._ Laurent’s fingers were cold, very very cold, and the stark contrast of their skins looked absolutely perfect. Damen wanted to stop time, then and there. He was aware -more than he should have been- of the fact that this was the first time Laurent willingly touched his skin, a touch which wasn’t meant to intimidate, to scare nor to annoy, a touch which merely existed, a touch that was a means and an end on itself.  
   
Laurent stared into Damen’s eyes and then followed his gaze towards where his hand was. It took him a second. A second in which Damen could hear a thousand symphonies.  
   
And then, _tacet._ Silent. Laurent’s fingers were gone and Damen blinked for a moment, trying to pull himself together. Laurent cleared his throat and looked at the leaves once again.  
   
“Your hands are cold”, Damen whispered, with the intent of having those words mixed with the utter intimacy of the moment. He could see the outline of Laurent’s profile very closely from where he was standing.  
   
Laurent kept looking intently at the leaves but managed a nod. “They are always cold”.  
   
“Want me to fetch you a sweater?”  
   
Laurent shook his head. “I’m fine. Plus, I’ll drown in one of your sweaters. Is that another of your ploys to kill me?”, he asked, turning to look again at Damen, probably because he felt the awkwardness of the moment was gone. “Because if it is, you’re getting sloppy”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “You caught me”, he said, and then, because there was still a weird aura in the environment, he felt the need to leave, “I’m going to make myself a cup of coffee, because you’re clearly planning to keep me up all night”, he said, walking out of the living room, “do you want me to get you anything?”  
   
Laurent sighed and returned to the leaves. “Tea would be fine”.  
   
Damen nodded and was about to enter the kitchen when he heard a soft, hesitant, “Damen?”  
   
“Hm?”  
   
_Tacet._ For a moment, for two, endless silence. After a while, “thank you, once again”.  
   
“I told you, you don’t have to”.  
   
“We can stop here if you want”.  
   
Was he adding more meaning to those words than he should?  
   
“No”.  
   
“Okay, then we won’t”.  
   
They didn’t.  
   
*****  
   
They worked on their project until three in the morning, until Damen couldn’t quite distinguish the leaves in front of him nor the words he was supposed to be writing on their final project. Laurent laughed as he realized that Damen was barely functioning as a human being and finally called it quits. They worked good together and had managed to make a lot of progress -they were halfway through their project- and Laurent was so brilliant that Damen didn’t mind listening to him talking about leaves and trees for days on end.  
   
As soon as he threw himself over the bed, he fell deeply asleep.  
   
When he woke up, late in the morning, and he walked to the kitchen, he realized just with one look at Laurent that he hadn’t managed to sleep at all. And had that been the reason why they’d stayed up all night?  
   
“Are you okay?”, he asked Laurent while Nicaise was taking a shower.  
   
Laurent huffed against his cup of black coffee, looking far too exhausted. “I can’t sleep”.  
   
“Is it… because it’s here? Because it’s me?”, Damen asked, unable to stop himself from wondering. “Because I’ve had a thousand opportunities to hurt you in our school room and I haven’t taken them, I wouldn’t do it in my parents’ house of all places”.  
   
Laurent smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s-”  
   
“Your uncle”.  
   
“It’s not normal from him. This…silence”.  
   
“Has he tried to reach you?”  
   
“Just one text he sent yesterday in the morning. It said, ‘you’ll regret this’”.  
   
“Is he always like this?”  
   
Laurent shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the first time we’ve done this”.  
   
“Why hadn’t you before?”, Damen asked him, curiosity taking the best of him.  
   
Laurent looked up and stared at him fixedly. “Because we had nowhere to go”.  
   
“You can always come here”, Damen replied, feeling himself blush.  
   
“Yes. I know that now”.  
   
Damen smiled at him. “How’s your stomach?”  
   
Laurent sighed. It was clear from his stance and his eyes and his breathing and the way he bit his lips that he certainly didn’t feel like fighting, which was honestly a bit worrisome, because it was as if a part of his essence was dormant, while his own mind couldn’t. “Better”.  
   
He moved closer towards Laurent and examined him carefully, looking at him up and down, while Laurent focused simply on drinking some coffee. “Take the day off”.  
   
“What?”  
   
“Sleep, all day. I’ll take care of Nicaise”.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “Playing Xbox all day isn’t taking care of him, you know?”  
   
“Fine, then what do you want me to do?”  
   
“Damen…”  
   
“What?”  
   
“I can’t ask anything else from you”.  
   
“Well asking something from me is better than seeing you lifeless and lightless all day”.  
   
Laurent rubbed his eyes. “I-”, he sighed and his shoulders slumped, as if he knew this was a battle he was bound to lose. “Fine. He has to do an essay on _The Illiad_ that he hasn’t even started, could you help him with that?”, Laurent asked.  
   
Damen nodded. “I could do that”.  
   
“Can you?”, Laurent asked skeptically.  
   
Damen narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? Making fun of me?”  
   
Laurent shook his head. “Sorry, sorry”.  
   
“You never apologize”.  
   
“I must be exhausted, then”.  
   
A minute later, Laurent was back in his bedroom, which truly was a testament of how terribly tired he must have been. Damen thought that maybe it hadn’t started when they’d arrived to his house, and it probably had also happened while they stayed at their uncle’s house.  
   
There was so much more about Laurent than what he showed the rest of the world, and the more he got to know him, or make himself believe he was actually knowing him, the more he admired him and his strength, because he’d been able to endure so much without saying anything about it, to _anyone._ It must have been terribly exhausting.  
   
Damen and Nicaise spent all morning and most of the afternoon writing the essay, because Nicaise, who was desperate on going back to his Xbox, kept writing mediocre stuff in order to get it done soon and then scoffed at Damen whenever he called him out for it. Damen made it out alive -barely-, with a couple of pencil stabs courtesy of Nicaise, but with a pretty decent essay.  
   
They hadn’t heard from Laurent since he’d gone back to his room, and at that point Damen was frankly worried for him, so after ordering some food, he went to retrieve him.  
   
He opened the door and found him deep asleep, strands of golden hair covering his face and a small smile in his lips which made him look like what Laurent truly was: a young man. A young man who almost seemed at ease with all the burdens the world had placed upon him.  
   
Damen sat by the edge of the bed and stared at him in wonder. “Laurent”, he whispered softly.  
   
Laurent didn’t even flinch.  
   
He moved closer to him, but not close enough to invade his space, and he called his name again.  
   
No response. Laurent was still breathing deeply.  
   
Damen rather liked that look on Laurent, his face was blushed from the hours he’d slept and his lips seemed slightly pinker than normal. The red of his cheeks created a beautiful contrast against the marble of his skin and his eyelashes looked longer below the soft light emanating from the window. He reached out unthinkingly and tucked one of his strands of hair behind his ear, marveling at the silk-like feeling.  
   
And Laurent’s eyes opened immediately in an expression Damen couldn’t quite understand. Damen retreated his hand fast and Laurent sat up in a rush, but once he fixed his eyes on Damianos, his sharp gaze changed and the façade slipped. “Damen”, he whispered.  
   
“I didn’t mean to scare you”, Damen whispered back.  
   
“Then you must have a natural talent for it”, Laurent replied.  
   
Damen sighed and fixed his attention on the window instead. The curtains were closed but a soft glow managed to find its way past them, indicating that the sun had finally risen after a cloudy afternoon.  
   
“What time is it?”, Laurent asked, unable to stifle a yawn quite in time.  
   
Damen looked at him with a smile again, he’d never seen Laurent yawning before. He looked quite adorable when he did it. “5 p.m.”  
   
“What?”  
   
Damen nodded.  
   
“I slept for seven hours”.  
   
“You did”.  
   
“How did the essay go?”  
   
Damen laughed and lifted his right arm. “Great”, he said, showing Laurent the places where Nicaise had stabbed him with his pencil, which were still identifiable by little spots of blood.  
   
And for the second time in less than 24 hours, Laurent touched his skin willingly. And Damen drew a sharp intake of breath in surprise. His touch was feather-light, intended to soothe, just a little bit. Damen could feel his pulse quickening and he wondered how on Earth it was possible that this touch could make him feel all those unnamable things at the same time, but he held himself still, very very still, afraid that the moment would shatter at any second.  
   
“Sorry about that”, Laurent replied, softly.  
   
Damen swallowed. “It’s okay. At least we got the job done”.  
   
Laurent stared at him and retreated his hand. “You did?”  
   
Damen nodded. “We finished it”, he said, feeling the absence of Laurent’s fingers.  
   
Laurent smiled widely. “Thank you, giant”.  
   
“You’re welcome, asshole”.  
   
“Was that why you woke me up? To show me your war injuries?”  
   
Damen stood up. “No. I came here to tell you that lunch is served”.  
   
“At 5 p.m.?”  
   
Damen shrugged. “We were busy”.  
   
“I’ll be there in a minute”.  
   
****  
   
Laurent seemed more at ease by the time he sat at the dining table, and the slight blush hadn’t left his cheeks which gave him an aura of _life_ that Damen hadn’t seen before in his face.  
   
“Hey, Nicaise”, Laurent said as soon as Nicaise was finishing his Chinese rice.  
   
“Hm?”, Nicaise asked through a mouthful of food.  
   
“Damianos showed me his arm”.  
   
Nicaise frowned and turned to look at Damen judgingly.  
   
“Why did you do that?”  
   
“He didn’t let me use my Xbox”.  
   
“That’s not a fair reason, grow the fuck up a little”, Laurent said bluntly.  
   
Nicaise nodded and returned to his food. “Does that mean I can’t stab him anymore?”  
   
“It does not”.  
   
“Hey!”, Damen said, offended.  
   
“-as long as you have a valid reason for doing it and as long as we’re no longer living under his chambers. Here you’ll be thankful and behave”.  
   
Nicaise rolled his eyes. “Fine”.  
   
After that, Nicaise went back to his Xbox and Damen played with him for hours, while Laurent sat next to them in the couch. While Nicaise chose the next set of rules for the race at Mario Karts, Damen looked around with a feeling of awe invading his whole body. He couldn’t help but smile. _This._ This tranquility, this sense of company, this was… something he hadn’t felt in a while. Not even with Kastor, before it all went to hell. This feeling was something he wasn’t used to, not even with Nik and his mom.  
   
It felt oddly…familiar, yet strangely new.  
   
He loved it.  
   
After a couple of hours of playing, Nicaise went to his room looking absolutely exhausted. Laurent accompanied him to his room and after saying goodnight, he went downstairs, Damen staring at him, unable to stop marveling at the way he held himself. Everything about Laurent was so regal, so controlled, so perfectly calculated, and yet it seemed as if his beauty was never a variable he focused on. Damen liked him even further because of that.  
   
And just when he thought Laurent would walk towards his couch, he turned and aimed for his backyard.  
   
He opened the glass door and walked towards a place Damen had told him about before. Damen stared at him in wonder, until Laurent stood in front of the willow and turned to look at Damen, cracking in laughter.  
   
Damen laughed and walked towards him, carefully opening the glass door. “I knew telling you the story was a bad idea”.  
   
Laurent was still laughing, “I just can’t stop picturing you falling off the branch, with that huge smile on your face while trying not to get caught, only to get a concussion”.  
   
Damen hit him on the arm playfully. “Stop it!”, he said.  
   
Laurent shook his head and sat on the couple of stairs which led towards the backyard. He stared at the horizon contemplatively. Damen sat next to him. It was cold, but they could manage, not the kind of cold expected from a December night, and the light above them, coming from the ceiling and casting a soft glow over the willow in front of them, was enough to warm them up.  
   
“I won’t get any sleep tonight”, Laurent said, rubbing his eyebrows.  
   
“You weren’t going to get any sleep either way”.  
   
Laurent nodded in agreement. “Doesn’t it get lonely in here?”, he asked Damen curiously, after a quiet moment.  
   
Damen sighed. “I’d been avoiding coming back here since the school year started, choosing to stay while sharing a room with _you_ of all people, so you can imagine how much I hate coming back here”.  
   
“I bet it gets lonely in the room we share as well”.  
   
“Yes, but at least I have someone to fight with. Believe it or not, sometimes you making my life a mess is better than to be received by silence and emptiness. It sucks”.  
   
“Great. Another reason to make your life a mess”.  
   
“I can’t win with you, can I?”  
   
Laurent shook his head and Damen smiled.  
   
“You haven’t called it home”, Laurent whispered.  
   
“What?”, Damen asked, turning to look at Laurent, who kept his eyes fixed on the horizon.  
   
“Ever since we arrived. You haven’t called it home once”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “It stopped feeling like home a long time ago”.  
   
“Since when?”, Laurent asked, curiously, no dark intent behind it, just pure and unmasked curiosity.  
   
“Since my parents died”. There, he’d said it. He closed his eyes for a moment, desperately trying to keep the sadness and the pain and the hurt away, but mentioning them, well that was always a trigger.  
   
When he opened his eyes again, Laurent was looking at him intently. Damen stared back at him and forced himself to keep talking, to say it. It had been a long time since he’d talked about this, and he’d only done so with Nik. “Car crash”, he said softly. “I was 13”.  
   
Laurent nodded and turned his head back to the willow. Damen appreciated that small gesture, because he needed a moment to recompose himself.  
   
He took a shuddering breath. Then another.  
   
“My asshole of a brother was the only family I had left and-”  
   
_Say it. Say it. Unearth it from the depths of darkness within your brain, leave it out, in the open, allow it to bruise to scar to hurt to heal. Face it. Say it and don’t turn back, don’t try to bury it again beneath all the layers of self-loathing within you._  
  
“and then he goes and fucks my girlfriend”.  
   
There, he’d unearthed it.  
   
Laurent didn’t react, his expression impassive.  
   
Damen laughed a humorless laughter and ruffled his curly hair. “It sounds so fucking stupid, when I say it like that”, and it did. It sounded like a stupid excuse, like a childish ruse and yet the pain was still raw within him.  
   
“It does not”, was all Laurent replied.  
   
“It wasn’t even about the fact she cheated on me, it’s just-”, he didn’t know how to put it into words, couldn’t find them, it seemed as if words, too, had been buried within dark corners, in those alleyways he never wanted to walk alone at night, those places he never revisited, for they always brought instability and insecurity.  
   
“You feel like he betrayed you”, Laurent said.  
   
And he’d found the word.  
   
Damen nodded. “He’s my brother. The only person I had left and he didn’t give a fuck about it. He chose her over me and I would have never done that. I would have let her go willingly if only I’d known, but the fact he kept it from me, I just… I can’t bring myself to trust him again. And in a second, I lost the only family I had and the two people I thought would never let me down”.  
   
Laurent was still staring ahead.  
   
They were silent for a moment. Damen felt like he was finally being able to _breathe._  
   
“My parents died too”, Laurent replied, still staring ahead, without even flinching, his expression so unchangeable that Damen wouldn’t have imagined he’d said that if he hadn’t heard it with his own ears. “A car crash, three years ago”, he said, sitting up straight and clearing his throat. “My other uncle, Nicaise’s father, was there as well”.  
   
_Oh._ So that was why Laurent took care of Nicaise.  
   
A second of silence, then two, then ten. Damen felt the air leaving the room. He didn’t know what to say, what to reply.  
   
“My brother was also there”, Laurent said, fidgeting with his strands of hair.  
   
“Laurent, I’m so sorry”, was all Damen could manage to say at the moment.  
   
“Auguste was the best man I’ve ever known. Always will be”.  
   
Damen’s eyes widened in surprise.  
   
_Auguste._ He remembered his name in muffled sobs and screams throughout Laurent’s nightmares.  
   
So _that_ was Auguste.


	15. Chapter 15

“I can tell by your face that it isn’t an unfamiliar name to you”, Laurent said nonchalantly, as he turned to look at Damianos. He didn’t sound surprised at all either.  
   
Damen was speechless. _Of course._ It was all making sense in his head. He’d thought about it, more than he’d liked to admit, and had reached the conclusion that Laurent’s brother, whoever that person was, was probably far away or unable to reach Laurent in any possible way, which was the reason why their trips to the forest had stopped and why Laurent referred to his uncle and Nicaise as the only family he had.  
   
The truth, of course, was worse.  
   
He couldn’t even begin to imagine, couldn’t conceive, couldn’t understand how Laurent managed to live with that. Live with that and stand up to his uncle and take care of Nicaise and get good grades. It was truly unbelievable.  
   
Damen cleared his throat. “The name came up once”, he said, fidgeting with the strands of his jumper, “-in one of your nightmares”.  
   
“Most of my nightmares are about him”, Laurent replied with a curt nod.  
   
Damen stared straight ahead this time, not daring to face Laurent, because he knew his expression was saying all he couldn’t with words. He was walking on thin ice and he knew it, and _oh god,_ he wanted to sink, he wanted to walk away, he wanted to run, he wanted to stay. “I never thought-”  
   
“Of course you didn’t”.  
   
Silence. On both sides. The stillness was so loud Damen could hear his own heart beating and the patterns of his breathing.  
   
And then Damen broke the silence in the only way he could possibly think of. “So that’s why you like the metaphor of cypresses?”  
   
Laurent didn’t manage to hide his expression of surprise quite in time. He turned to Damen. “That’s why I like the metaphor of cypresses”.  
   
“Life amidst death”.  
   
“They were some kind of solace whenever I visited Auguste and my parents at the cemetery. I don’t know, sometimes I’d simply stare at them pointing at the shapes of their leaves and the color and texture of the trunk and it felt as if Auguste was still there, looking at me with that face of curiosity he could fake so well whenever we walked around the forest”, Laurent said, his eyes fixed on the willow, “I still feel his presence whenever I do it”, he turned towards Damen, “which is partly the reason why I was in such a talkative mood during our walk through the cypresses”.  
   
Damen smiled at the memory. “You _were_ surprisingly talkative”.  
   
“That’s because it feels as if nothing had changed. But then, of course, I stop walking and find a giant man standing next to me and looking at me with a mix of surprise, awe and fear and I realize that everything has changed”.  
   
Damen nodded. “I understand”.  
   
“You do?”, Laurent asked skeptically.  
   
“After our parents died, Kastor used to take me to the beach every now and then and we would build sand castles and sat there waiting for a big wave to take them away. It was something we used to do with our father, who literally created a blueprint of the castle we were about to build and gave us all the instructions on how to do it. So we’d do that, and a couple of minutes later, we allowed ourselves to believe he wasn’t gone, that he was staring at us and thinking about what next instruction to give us, while mom looked at us from below her umbrella with a smile. It was a fleeting sensation, but it made us feel more alive than ever”.  
   
Laurent nodded.  
   
Silence. A long silence.  
   
“What is home, then?”, Laurent asked, out of the blue.  
   
“Hm?”, Damen asked, distracted.  
   
“If this house stopped feeling like a home to you, what is your definition of home?”  
   
_Watching a movie at Nik’s house and falling asleep in the couch to find hours later that a blanket had been placed upon me and the lights had been dimmed._  
  
That had been his idea of home for a while now.  
   
And yet, an image of home came unbidden to his mind.  
   
_Playing Xbox with Nicaise as you sit by the fire and read a book, and while I try to win the race, I catch a glimpse of the reflection of fire against your hair, lighting it all up and I can’t help but smile, but you don’t notice because you’re so deeply focused on every word you find along the way, and in the back, Nicaise swears loudly because he crashed against someone._  
   
Home.  
   
He blinked and found Laurent’s eyes fixed on him, looking endlessly curious. Damen managed to shrug with half a mind. “Don’t know”, he lied, “haven’t really thought about it”. He sighed. “What about you?”  
   
Laurent thought his reply for a second before he said, “a good book”.  
   
“That’s it?”  
   
“That’s it”.  
   
The silence fell once again. They had nothing else to talk about, not really. And yet, they didn’t feel the empty weight of quietness, pressing and looming over them. They remained there, finding an odd kind of comfort in each other, in learning that they had gone through similar situations. So similar, yet so irreparably different. It was an odd feeling for Damen, to finally feel like he was _seeing_ Laurent, the person he’d been intent on hating, the person he’d been intent on disliking, the person he’d never intended to fall for. And beneath it all, beneath the thousand layers Damen had imprinted on him, he finally caught a glimpse of the person.  
   
And the feeling was intoxicating, blinding, striking. He wanted to know every single layer of Laurent.  
   
Laurent simply stood up, and without saying anything else, he left.  
   
*****  
   
That night, Damen went to sleep with a smile on his face that he couldn’t quite manage to wipe off. He wondered if all of that had actually happened, if Laurent had really said it all, had trusted Damen of all people to confide his secrets, to tell him that he, too, felt lonely sometimes.  
   
And he hated it. He hated how much he loved it. And he knew that the more they spent time together like this it was only going to get worse, he would only fall deeper and deeper for Laurent, as if such thing was possible. And he realized, both with a pang and a feeling of relief, that everything would change between them after this week, that when they’d come back to their room at high school their whole dynamic would shift, because they’d both told one another things they would never tell anyone else, they held each other’s most private secrets.  
   
And he loved it. He loved the fact that everything had changed.  
   
And yet, the next morning everything was the same. Laurent didn’t refer to their conversation the night before, as it was meant to be, and yet there was an easiness in the environment that hadn’t been there previously. Even Nicaise could perceive it as they sat on the table and Laurent arrived with their breakfast.  
   
“Did you fuck last night?”, Nicaise asked simply.  
   
 Damen _spitted_ the spoonful of scrambled eggs he’d just put in his mouth and coughed a little, choked by the surprise of Nicaise’s blunt statement.  
   
Laurent, on the other hand, remained impassive, his eyes fixed on his plate. “Do you seriously think I would look like this if he had fucked me?”, he asked calmly.  
   
Nicaise chuckled. “No, you wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed”, he replied and then he pointed at Damen, “and your hair would be a disgusting tangled mess”.  
   
Damen focused on eating his eggs.  
   
“Then there is your answer”, Laurent said.  
   
After their awkward breakfast in which Laurent and Damen didn’t have much to say while Nicaise talked to them excitedly about the new Avengers trailer that had been dropped that morning, and a shower in which Damen did _not_ even dare to think about how Laurent would look after a night of lovemaking, they decided they would finish their project that day.  
   
They spent most of the afternoon talking about leaves and on how to illustrate the results, their interactions very business-like, but without any bite nor banter. They just worked together, in a weird, twisted way, Damen knew.  
   
They finished at about 9 p.m., both too exhausted to even proof-read it, but they were done. After that, they all sat at the couch and Nicaise chose a movie on Netflix to watch. And once again, unbidden, unwanted, and desperately needing it without knowing it, the image of _home_ appeared right in front of Damen’s eyes.  
   
At some point during the movie, Damen fell asleep, deeply.  
   
Until he felt a pillow hitting him on the head and he woke up grudgingly to find Laurent looking at him. “Ugh, what?”  
   
“Wasn’t me”, Laurent said, stifling a yawn, “I was a victim of the pillow too”.  
   
Nicaise was in front of them, shrugging, “that’s what happens when you fall asleep while watching Winter Soldier! How dare you?”, he asked, looking offended.  
   
Damen crossed his arms. “Well, we didn’t spend all day playing videogames so I suppose actually getting the work done exerts you”.  
   
“You’re both pathetic”, Nicaise said, “I’m off to bed. Don’t fuck”, he said, walking to his room.  
   
Damen was too tired to even blush at that statement. He leaned against the back of the couch and was about to fall asleep when he felt a foot kicking him in the thigh. “Damianos”, he heard Laurent’s voice calling his name.  
   
“Hm”, he mumbled, “I’m staying here tonight”.  
   
Laurent kicked him once again and Damen held his foot with his hands, not allowing him to pull back. He felt Laurent shuffling next to him. A second later, a fist against his bicep. “Let go of my foot, you giant”, Laurent was saying playfully.  
   
“Let me sleep, you serpent”, Damen replied, his eyes still closed.  
   
Laurent hit him on the bicep again and Damen turned his head and opened his eyes to look at him.  
   
And he grew speechless. He knew his mouth opened just a fraction.  
   
The last time he’d been so close to Laurent was when they’d fought over the leaves. _Laurent blushed from anger and his eyes black, as fierce as his stance and his will, his breathing ragged._ And now, Laurent was the complete opposite from _that_ Laurent. _His eyes open a smile playing on his mouth but not quite managing to form itself completely strands of hair falling over his face._ They were less than two inches apart. The impulse to close the distance was inebriating. Laurent was still staring at him.  
   
A second later, the hand that had been softly punching his bicep was touching it. A soft, feather-light touch. Damen looked at that hand fixedly and swallowed, he could feel his heart beating fast.  
   
Laurent looked down and then looked up once again, his eyes fixed on Damen.  
   
Damen didn’t know, couldn’t tell what to make of _this._  
   
“Damianos?”, Laurent whispered, not moving from where he was.  
   
“Yes?”, Damen asked, breathlessly.  
   
Laurent moved a little bit closer, the slightest of distances. Damen licked his lips without thought.  
   
“Let go off my foot”, Laurent replied, his hand still on his bicep.  
   
Damen closed his eyes and let go of it. A second later, the hand had pulled away and Laurent was standing up. Damen _ached…_ for everything. Everything. He couldn’t put another name to it, he wanted Laurent in so many ways it hurt to admit it and, as he’d realized the night before, the feeling was only bound to get worse with time and he ached for Laurent.  
   
Laurent, who’d made his life a living hell just for his entertainment.  
   
Damen stood up as well.  
   
“Goodnight, Damianos”, Laurent said, grabbing the blanket that had covered him.  
   
Damen only managed a nod.  
   
Just as Laurent was going to get lost inside the hall which lead to the stairs, Damen couldn’t help but call out his name.  
   
Laurent turned and looked at him with a frown.  
   
Damen had a thousand words in his mind that he just couldn’t put together. He shook his head and looked down with a sigh before asking, “will the truce be over once we return from winter break?”, he said helplessly.  
   
Laurent thought about it for a moment. “Do you want the truce to be over?”, he asked.  
   
“I do not”.  
   
“Then it will not be over. I think you’ve earned the right after-”, he clearly was struggling to say it but he forced himself to, “-after all you’ve done for us, Damianos”.  
   
Damen nodded.  
   
Laurent turned and was walking away. “I think-”, Damen started.  
   
Laurent turned back and looked at him. “I think we could be friends”, he said, “with time, we could”.  
   
After kicking himself mentally for having said _that_ of all things and for how pathetic and desperate that sounded, he prepared himself for the rebuttal, and he knew that Laurent certainly had one ready. Maybe a laugh, maybe a scoff, maybe ignoring him. They would all have the same effect: they would break Damen, not in an irreparable kind of way, but certainly in a way that would scar for a while, for he knew from the very beginning that was never an option between them. A friendship was an impossibility from the moment they-  
   
“With time, we could”, was all Laurent said.  
   
And Damen was speechless.  
   
“Goodnight, Damen”.  
   
“Goodnight, Laurent”, he said, _thank you for not breaking me tonight,_ he didn’t say.  
   
*****  
   
The night before the last day of the year, Laurent had a nightmare. Damen was sleeping soundly in his bed when he listened to a rumble of pots and saucepans coming from the kitchen. He stood up in a rush, his senses instantly in alert, as he walked out and found Laurent’s exhausted face. This kind of situation was always surprising for Damen, for he was used to Laurent’s many different masks, and to see his expressions so unguarded, so utterly lost amidst the pain and the shock of the nightmare that he didn’t even care about placing a mask over himself, that was certainly worrisome.  
   
“Ugh”, Laurent said, looking miserable, “I didn’t mean to wake you up”.  
   
“Then you could have chosen not to destroy half of my kitchen at three in the morning”.  
   
Laurent leaned against the stove and took a deep breath. “I needed to make myself a cup of tea”, he said, looking for the kettle.  
   
Damen walked towards him. “Laurent, your fingers are shaking”.  
   
Laurent ignored him and kept looking for the kettle, but Damen stopped him. “Don’t”, he said, “I’ll fetch you the tea”.  
   
“No, you’ll go back to sleep”.  
   
Damen sighed. “I’m not fighting with you over tea at 3 a.m., go sit over there and I’ll make you the tea”.  
   
Laurent made an annoyed face but complied. Damen, still feeling dizzy from standing up in a rush, made him the tea. By the time he brought it to Laurent, he realized his shaking had stopped, but he was still sweating. Damen gave him a handkerchief and Laurent accepted both without complain.  
   
“Thank you”, Laurent replied.  
   
Damen nodded and drank his cup of tea in silence before Laurent said, out of nowhere, loud and simple and complex and wonderful and practical and hesitant, “tell me a story”.  
   
Damen turned to look at him in bewilderment. “What?”, he asked, taken aback.  
   
Laurent hid his mouth behind the cup of tea, but before he took a sip, he said again, “tell me a story”.  
   
“What?”, Damen asked, once again, teasingly.  
   
Laurent glared at him and Damen smiled and winked at him, Laurent threw him a look of disgust.  
   
“What do you want me to tell you?”, he asked, quietly.  
   
Laurent shrugged. “Anything. Just distract me”.  
   
Damen thought for a moment and smiled before saying, “once, when Nik and I were camping, a bear passed by our tent. We were terrified, we could see its shadow through the tent and we held onto each other as we shuddered. The bear stood there for a minute or two, before walking away, but it felt like an eternity. After it left, I realized that Nik had pissed his pants”.  
   
Laurent snorted and cracked in laughter. “Oh _my_ God!”  
   
“But we were alive and the bear hadn’t eaten us, so who gave a shit about his wet pants?”  
   
Laurent smiled into his tea and took another sip, his shoulders relaxing. “Do you feel better now?”, Damen asked.  
   
Laurent nodded, looking visibly more relaxed, more at ease.  
   
A moment later, he turned to look at Damen and broke in laughter again.  
   
“What?”, Damen asked.  
   
“You don’t realize when you talk who you’re talking to, do you? You just gave me the perfect ammunition”.  
   
Damen laughed. “You wouldn’t. You have to respect the truce”.  
   
Laurent shrugged. “The truce isn’t with him and he clearly doesn’t like me much, so I’ll take this as a form of leverage in case the opportunity arises”.  
   
Damen smiled, shaking his head, “why do I always tell you everything I shouldn’t?”  
   
Laurent looked down at his cup, not meeting Damen’s eyes. “I’ve asked myself the same question for the last four months”.  
   
Damen knew the answer, but he chose not to share it.  
   
******  
   
Before they even realized, it was New Year’s Eve. And Laurent had yet to hear from his uncle. Which, of course, could not be a good sign. By that day, both Nicaise and Laurent were over the edge, silently wondering if they should go back to his uncle’s house and pretend that nothing had happened. In some way, they wished the blow would just come, because that was preferable than that uncertainty and unpredictability they were dealing with, but that was the way their uncle acted.  
   
Damen, too, was over the edge, worrying about their wellbeing more than he should have, and being extra cautious about the security in their house. Laurent hadn’t told Damen what had led to him being kicked on the abdomen yet again and Damen didn’t ask him. He felt they’d already shared too much information about each other during the last week, and to continue doing so was building a time bomb that was bound to explode at any second and destroy anything in its wake.  
   
So the last day of the year was not a pleasant day. The ghost of their uncle was haunting their every movement and the impending celebration only drove them more and more wary. Which was why when the doorbell rang at eight p.m., the three of them stared at each other in undisguised terror.  
   
Damen stood up in a rush. He wasn’t going to look through the window, that would only make him look suspicious. “Go hide. I’ll distract him. He won’t know you’re here”.  
   
Laurent was about to protest when Damen turned to look at him with a sharp expression. “I said, go”, he said seriously.  
   
Laurent sighed and nodded, taking Nicaise with him.  
   
Damen waited until he made sure they were out of sight, feeling goosebumps all over his body. He couldn’t have found them, he couldn’t have. But he was a smart man, of course he’d know where they were. He was calculating, he knew how to trick them and pretend nothing was wrong.  
   
And Damen would have believed him, if he hadn’t seen Laurent’s abdomen.  
   
He opened the door.  
   
And his sudden sense of relief was almost maddening. But it was quickly replaced with confusion.  
   
“Surprise!”, Nik said excitedly, “Happy New Year, Damen!”  
   
Damen blinked.  
   
Pallas and Erasmus walked behind Nik and smiled at him widely. “We’ll keep you company on New Year’s”, Pallas exclaimed. “And we are getting hammered!!!”, he said, raising a bottle of vodka he was holding.  
   
“But no kisses at midnight!”, Erasmus said, pointing an accusatory finger at him.  
   
Nik took advantage of Damen’s surprise and opened the door wider, walking in a rush into the house. “I would give you a hug, but I really have to pee”.  
   
Damen was still by the door.  
   
And then he heard a voice behind him.  
   
“Hello, Nikandros, wasn’t expecting to see you here”.  
   
And he could almost _hear_ Laurent’s smug smile as he said it.  
   
_Oh, fucking hell._


	16. Chapter 16

Damen turned to see Nikandros dead still in front of Laurent, who was smiling at him with a predatory smile. He could hear the gasps of surprise coming from Pallas and Erasmus at his back, and he rubbed his forehead. There was a _lot_ of explaining to do.  
   
A second later, Nik turned to look at Damen, horror and surprise written in his face, every one of his expressions so crystal-clear that he was the stark contrast to Laurent’s stoicism.  
   
Damen sighed.  
   
“Care to explain what the serpent is doing here, Damen?”  
   
Laurent’s smile widened and Damen glared at him, thinking that the least he wanted right now was to have Nik and Laurent fighting one another.  
   
Pallas was the first one to react as he walked inside the house towards the kitchen, asking loudly, “who wants some vodka?”  
   
“I do!”, a voice behind Laurent said and Damen rubbed his forehead even harder.  
   
Laurent turned to look at Nicaise with a serious glance. “You will _not_ drink, Nicaise”.  
   
Nicaise walked into the living room as if he owned it. Nikandros turned again and saw the kid, and his expression, raw open, denoted the confusion he was certainly feeling at the moment.  
   
“I’ll take the vodka, Pallas, please”, Damen replied.  
   
Erasmus walked in and sat at the couch, looking at Damen expectantly.  
   
Laurent crossed his arms, looking completely at ease with himself, while being amused by the sight in front of him.  
   
Damen exhaled loudly before fixing his attention on Laurent. “Can we talk in private, please?”  
   
Laurent seemed reluctant but finally nodded, and they walked into the backyard.  
   
As soon as they were out of earshot, Damen said the only thing he could think of at the moment. “What should we tell them?”, he asked.  
   
Laurent looked at him in surprise for a moment, before schooling back his features. “What?”  
   
“What do you want me to tell them?”  
   
“The truth. What else can we possibly tell them?”  
   
“I promised you that I would keep all of this a secret. I’m intending on keeping that promise”.  
   
Laurent stared at him silently for a moment. “Tell them we’re doing the biology project”.  
   
Damen nodded diligently. “What about Nicaise?”  
   
“Well, he’s my cousin, we can’t lie about him, can we?”  
   
Damen shook his head before walking back. Just as he was about to enter the living room, he stopped and turned. “I’m sorry”, he said, facing Laurent, “I had no idea they would come and I know this situation makes you uncomfortable, I-”  
   
Laurent rose a hand to stop him. “I know. It’s alright, this is your house after all. Plus, their expressions were priceless so I count that as a personal victory”.  
   
Damen laughed and walked into the living room, where two sets of eyes were fixed on them expectantly. Nik, however, was too busy bickering with Nicaise, who was asking him how much he weighed.  
   
“Who the fuck are you?”, Nik asked him in confusion.  
   
“I’m the guest who will _not_ break the couch”.  
   
Nik looked up at Damen helplessly. Laurent stepped forward. “He’s my cousin, Nicaise. Him and Damen are good friends-”, Nicaise scoffed loudly at that and Laurent ignored him, “so I brought him along. We were busy working on a Biology project we have due for next week when you interrupted us”.  
  
Nik looked at Damen and he nodded. “We’ve been working since yesterday so Laurent stayed last night. We decided today we would finish it and we were in the middle of doing that”.  
   
The lie came easily to him. He hated lying to Nik but he knew he was doing this to protect Laurent. It was worth it. Damen hated it, but it was worth it.  
   
Pallas and Erasmus accepted the excuse and carried on as if nothing had happened, although the fact that Pallas had started delivering the vodka also had something to do with it. Laurent rejected drinking any alcohol and fetched himself some grape juice, which he also gave to Nicaise, who looked at him sourly.  
   
But Nik was looking at him with a different expression on his face. Damen knew him perfectly, and he was certain that he hadn’t bought the lie and he was certainly angry about that. As the guys settled in the living room and the music started to pound, Damen downed his second glass in one go and took the opportunity to motion Nik to follow him into the backyard.  
   
Nik did so willingly. “What the fuck, Damen?”, he asked, turning to look at him as soon as he stepped into the backyard.  
   
“I was planning on telling you, but-”  
   
 “But?”  
   
“But Laurent made me promise not to tell anything to anyone. You know how much promises matter to me”.  
   
“And especially when they’re coming from _him_ of all people”.  
   
“What do you want me to say?”  
   
“I just want you to know what you’re getting into, Damen. He has proven to be-”  
   
“I know. I know. This was a favor I did to him. We’ve reached some sort of…agreement of non-violence or something. I don’t know if I can trust him yet but it’s worked so far”.  
   
“Has anything happened between the two of you?”, Nik asked him, whispering.  
   
Damen shook his head. “If something happens, you’ll be the first one to know”.  
   
Nik raised an eyebrow. “So now that’s a possibility, huh?”.  
   
“Doubtfully”.  
   
Nik rolled his eyes. “Seriously, be careful, you idiot. I don’t want to be wiping your tears as you hug a teddy bear and listen to Lionel Ritchie, _yet again_ ”.  
   
“Don’t worry, Nik. I haven’t forgotten what he’s done to me. He’s still the same asshole who locked me out of my room”. _A lie which came as easily as the previous one._  
  
Nik nodded. “Are you okay with us being here?”  
   
“Of course! I’m so happy to have you here!”  
   
“And Laurent?”  
   
“He’s… he’s fine. If you could just not…strangle one another, I would appreciate that”.  
   
“I can’t make any promises but I’ll try”.  
   
“Are we good?”  
   
Nik punched him on the arm. “If you hide this from me once again, I will kick your butt and I’m not even kidding”.  
   
Damen smiled. “Deal”, he replied.  
   
*****  
   
A couple of drinks later, they were starting to feel light-headed. Damen could feel the sensation slowly approaching him, crowing him, dragging him, and he didn’t want to let go. Laurent was sitting at the other end of the room, talking to Erasmus, looking more at ease than Damen expected him to. Nik, on the other hand, was talking to Nicaise about videogames, and he was listening to Pallas talking excitedly about the message he’d received from Lazar.  
   
“Can you believe it? Texting me for Christmas? I almost melted”.  
   
“And what did you reply?”  
   
“I sent him a gif of a smiling cat. He didn’t reply after that”.  
   
Damen laughed louder than he thought and realized that maybe vodka was starting to have an effect on him. “You _have_ to send him one tonight”.  
   
Pallas bit his lip. “I don’t know, Damen, it terrifies me to think he might laugh at me or ghost me or something”.  
   
Damen shook his head, “no, no, no, you’re texting him. A simple enough text with no intent to it, but it will be an icebreaker, after that ask him a couple of questions and you’ll get to know him better. It will work better than the gif of the kitten, I’m certain”.  
   
Pallas took another sip of vodka and nodded determinedly. “You know what? I’ll do it”.  
   
Damen encouraged him excitedly and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. A couple of seconds later, he heard someone approaching him. “Giving up so fast, Damianos?”, Laurent whispered behind him.  
   
Damen turned, unable to hide his smile quite in time -he had the booze to blame for that-, and raised an eyebrow. “Absolutely not. The night is just beginning. You don’t drink?”, he asked him.  
   
“Never have enjoyed it much”.  
   
“Are you alright? I mean with them?”  
   
“Do I have any other choice?”, Laurent replied.  
   
Damen shook his head. “Sorry”.  
   
Laurent smiled, a small, shy smile. “It’s alright. Seriously. Plus, Nicaise seems to be getting along with Nikandros, which is a good sign, although it feels like a betrayal to me”.  
   
“It _is_ a betrayal to you, and he’s doing it quite well”.  
   
Laurent sighed with a roll of his eyes. Damen turned and gave him his full attention. In that space, so near yet so out of sight from everyone else, Damen felt a certain thrill running through his veins, and he allowed himself a moment to stare fixedly at Laurent, the way he’d wanted to for so long. He looked at him openly, with all his thoughts filling the space between them. He knew he looked besotted, and at the moment, he couldn’t care less. Laurent looked directly at him and raised an eyebrow, none of them capable of breaking eye contact. “What?”, Laurent whispered.  
   
Damen smiled. “Nothing. You’re just- different from what I thought you’d be”.  
   
“You think you know me now?”, Laurent asked defiantly.  
   
“I think I’m finally starting to”.  
   
Laurent opened his mouth to reply when Pallas’ voice cut through the intimacy of the environment. “Hey! It’s almost midnight”, he yelled from the living room.  
   
Laurent cleared his throat and pointed towards the living room. “We should go”.  
   
_No. Stay and talk to me. Look at me. I want to melt in your eyes. I want to touch your cheekbone and close the last inches keeping us apart. I want you to be the first person I look at when the year starts. I only want to fix my eyes on your smile._  
  
Laurent was already walking away.  
   
In the living room, everyone was standing, the countdown about to begin. Damen and Laurent stood next to each other, their arms brushing. Nicaise was pushing past Nikandros so he could get next to Laurent right on time and when he didn’t, he kicked him on the shin. Laurent threw a triumphant smile at Nicaise as he stood next to him. Nik looked at Damen, who only managed a shrug, as if to say _get used to it._  
  
They counted down the last seconds until midnight. And then it was New Year. Damen turned to look at Laurent, but he was too busy ruffling Nicaise’s hair as the boy struggled to get his hands off him, and a second later, he fell to the ground, Nik, Pallas and Erasmus rushing from behind to hug him, with such strength that they ended up tackling him. He laughed, feeling light-headed but also completely at ease among them. It was a strange feeling, this peace with himself. He hugged them all and stood up, trying to put his hair back into place and straightening his clothes a little bit. Nicaise, surprisingly enough, was the next to attack him, crashing against him hard, but hugging him in the last second, while Damen recovered his breath. “If you ever tell anyone that I hugged you, you’re a dead man, brute”, Nicaise said as he pulled apart.  
   
Damen smiled as he nodded and he turned and-  
   
Laurent was staring at him. Damen’s first thought was that _everyone_ could feel the tension in the room, but he looked around and found Nik speaking with his mom over the phone as Pallas was focused solely on what he should text Lazar and Erasmus was helping Nicaise to set up the Xbox to play for a while. It was just the two of them in the middle of that crowded room.  
   
Damen smiled. Laurent simply looked at him.  
   
“Happy new year, Laurent”, was all Damen could say.  
   
“Happy new year, Damianos”, he replied.  
   
And seriously, what else could they say?  
   
Damen allowed himself one more second to look at him before turning towards the rest of the living room. As he did, he shut his eyes closed, his feelings threatening to overcome him, to spill and drown him. He needed to get a grip. He needed to walk away. He needed Laurent. He hated the fact that he wanted him so badly. He loved the fact that he wanted him so badly.  
   
He walked towards Pallas. “What happened?”  
   
Pallas was frowning at his phone. “He’s typing. Oh fuck, I can’t see, you look at the reply”.  
   
Damen stared at the phone and smiled, “just read it”.  
   
Pallas did and smiled widely. “He sent me a kiss emoji. I’m officially going to die”.  
   
Damen laughed and helped him write another text back.  
   
A moment later, he felt a tap against his shoulder. He turned to find Laurent. “Yes?”, he asked.  
   
Laurent cleared his throat. “I’m going to head to bed”.  
   
“So soon?”, Damen asked, unable to help himself. He knew disappointment was written in his face.  
   
Laurent nodded. “…I was waiting for the New Year”.  
   
“Alright”.  
   
“Please make sure Nicaise doesn’t drink vodka. And don’t drink much more yourself. You’re pathetic when you’re drunk”.  
   
Damen smiled. “Done”, he fidgeted with his t-shirt for a second before asking, very lowly, “Can I walk you to your room?”  
   
Laurent leaned closer and laughed. “What?”  
   
“May I walk you to your room?”, Damen asked once again, with determination. He could blame the alcohol for that.  
   
Laurent crossed his arms. “I think I’m familiar with the way after five nights of sleeping here”.  
   
“I know but”, Damen scratched his head, “I don’t know. I just want to say goodnight”, he replied helplessly.  
   
Laurent shrugged. “I can’t stop you from walking around your own house”, he said, walking away already.  
   
Damen followed him with a small smile in his face.  
   
They walked the couple of steps it took them to reach his bedroom in silence. Laurent stopped in front of the door and turned to look at Damen. “What a nurturing conversation”, he said, sarcastically.  
   
Damen shrugged. “I’m slightly drunk, I think nothing of interest will leave my mouth”.  
   
Laurent smiled and looked down, his hair falling over his face before he looked up once again.  
   
And Damen couldn’t control himself. It was a mix of everything: the alcohol, the warmth irradiating from Laurent, their proximity and that silly, shy smile that Laurent was throwing at him, so unabashedly, as if the world wasn’t supposed to fall apart after seeing him smiling like _this,_ so authentic, so restrained, so small, so perfect, solely directed at Damen, as if Earth was supposed to keep turning after Laurent smiled like _this,_ with his hair falling over his eyes like _this._ The mix of winter and summer right in front of his eyes, Damen couldn’t help but reach a hand out. He tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear. That much was _normal,_ he’d done it before, in those moments when impulse overcame logic itself, but he couldn’t retreat his hand, not yet, for he was driven by a desperate need to feel the marble of his skin.  
   
He softly caressed his cheekbone. _Warm, blush, a small dimple from that smile that was still plastered on his face. Soft. So soft._  
  
Damen swallowed. The feeling was hypnotizing.  
   
Laurent closed his eyes for a fraction of a second in which it seemed like time had completely stopped. But the world kept on turning, and Damen felt with a pang the way Laurent froze, opening his eyes and taking a step back in a rush.  
   
Damen squeezed his eyes shut. His hand was still tingling from the sensation. Laurent wasn’t looking at him. He dragged a deep breath. “I’m sorry”, he whispered, “I should know better than that”. What the hell was wrong with him? How could he have done _that?_ He was out of control.  
   
Laurent nodded.  
   
“I-”, Damen rubbed the back of his neck, “I’ll leave you be. Happy new year. Sleep tight”, he said, taking another step back.  
   
“Damen”, Laurent’s cold and composed voice stopped him.  
   
Damen fixed his eyes on him questioningly.  
   
Laurent shook his head. “Nothing. Have a good night”.  
   
Damen felt the weight of the words around them, dragging in a thousand feelings that he could not dare to admit, not to Laurent, not out loud. Maybe if he squeezed his eyes closed forcefully enough, and if he drank enough alcohol, that stinging pain in his heart and that dire, raw need to be _closer_ to Laurent would dissipate. If only he were so lucky.  
   
“I’m sorry”, Damen said, once again.  
   
“It was the alcohol”, Laurent supplied.  
   
“No”, Damen replied impulsively. “I-”, a long deep breath to get himself under control, “I don’t know”, he whispered.  
   
Laurent threw him one last glance before turning and walking into the bedroom, the door closing behind him. Damen looked around the darkened hallway and stood there, still and silent, for a moment, ordering his mind to put its shit together.  
   
******  
   
Nik was wasted when Damen arrived to the living room once again, his head lolling to the side, as if holding his brain in place was too much work. Damen sat next to Nik and dragged a deep, exhausted breath. Nik received him with a shot of vodka which Damen gladly took.  
   
“You look like shit”, Nik told him, his words slurred.  
   
“I feel like shit”, Damen replied, without the energy to hide the truth from Nik.  
   
“Serpent boy attacking again?”  
   
Damen blinked at the mention of Laurent. Then, helplessly, he nodded. “I hate him”.  
   
“No, you don’t”.  
   
“I don’t”.  
   
Damen stood up to fetch Nik another glass of vodka. As he sat, he’d made up his mind. He wouldn’t hide anything else from Nik, and under the warmth of the alcohol, Damen felt it easily slipping from his lips. “Can I tell you something?”  
   
“Always”, Nik replied, with a hiccup.  
   
“I-”, he cleared his throat. He turned to look at Nik, “you were right. I’m in love with him”.  
   
Nik blinked for a second, then two. Then his face contorted in surprise, as if the meaning of those words had finally caught up to him. “Woah, woah, woah”, he said loudly. Nicaise and Pallas, playing in the Xbox, turned to look at them both with a questioning look, Damen just shrugged it off and widened his eyes at him, as if begging him to be quiet.  “You’re in love with him?”, Nik whispered, his words coming slurry, “like, really, truly _in love_ with him?”  
   
Damen shut his eyes and nodded. “Yes, yes, you were right”.  
   
“Duuude”, Nik said, raising his hand in the air, as if it was proving a point, “I thought you had a _crush_ on him, I didn’t think you were _nuts_ over him”.  
   
Damen stood silent. He cleared his throat, “well, the crush was obvious, wasn’t it?”  
   
“Yes but you never admitted it! Didn’t expect you to tell me _this!_ ”, a second later, Nik started laughing loudly.  
   
Damen punched him in the arm. “What on _Earth_ can be funny about this?”  
   
“You are fucked”, Damen nodded knowingly, “like, _seriously_ fucked”.  
   
“Yeah, no shit Sherlock”, Damen replied, rubbing his eyes, “I- what am I going to do, Nik?”, he asked helplessly.  
   
Nik shrugged. “Don’t know. That boy is a weird specimen”.  
   
“We’ve…lived a lot of things together lately, I-, he’s different, once you get to know him. He’s kind and fair and he cares a lot about people, more than he should, and-”  
   
Nik broke in laughter once again. “Seriously fucked”, he said once again.  
   
Damen leaned against the headrest. “I need more vodka”, was all he could think about as he made his way to the kitchen and fetched him and Nik more alcohol.  
   
As he sat once again, Nik tried to straighten himself up, to no avail, slumping himself back on the couch and taking a long sip before clearing his throat and finally saying, “okay I need to tell you something!”  
   
The suddenness of the statement took Damen by surprise and he jumped, almost spilling his vodka. “What the hell?”, he asked.  
   
Nik took a deep breath before he said, “um- okay, _but_ you can’t tell anyone, and you can’t tell me anything and you’ll be supportive and good because you’re my friend, alright?”  
   
“…okay”.  
   
Nik took another sip of vodka. “Okay, so, I think I”, he started, pointing at Damen menacingly, “don’t say a word about this, Damianos”.  
   
“I won’t, Nikandros”.  
   
“So, the thing is”, Nik rubbed the back of his head, “well, it’s not even a thing, just a general thought and-”  
   
“Oh my God, just spill it out already, man!”  
   
Nik closed his eyes. “I might or might not have a mild to moderate crush on Jord”, he said suddenly and in a rush.  
   
Damen blinked. “What!”, he exclaimed.  
   
Nik sighed. “Ugh, yes”.  
   
“Since when?”  
   
“Since we share a room and started becoming friends and I got to know a deeper side of him?”, Nik said helplessly.  
   
Damen smiled. “Oh my God!”, then he punched Nik in the arm, “and you threw shit at me for Laurent, asshole?”  
   
Nik shrugged. “He’s been kind and nice to me. Laurent is just a bitch”.  
   
Damen broke in laughter. “Oh my _god!_ ”, he exclaimed, “oh, this is going to be _so much_ fun”.  
   
“Fun?”  
   
“Yes, both of us pining. We’ve never done that before, have we?”  
   
Nik frowned. “I hate it”.  
   
“That makes two of us, my friend”.  
   
Damen laughed once again and nudged Nik. “So? Jord huh?”  
   
Nik rolled his eyes. “I’m going to regret this in the morning”.  
   
   
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things to say:  
> 1\. I've changed my pseud because I'm tired of my current username (johnandsherlocks) but I can't change it, so I'll keep writing this fic as thesmophorias, which is my new pseud!  
> 2\. Sorry for taking so long with this chapter, thank you for your comments and kudos, see you next week! x


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update this little one! I started on a new job which is leaving me no time at all to the other things in life, but I'm loving writing this fic too much and I promise you next chapter will be up soon! x
> 
> Also wanted to say I'm sorry for taking so long with this slow burn, this is slower than I expected, BUT trust me: it will be worth it and I'm pretty certain you will love it when it happens! 
> 
> Thank you so so much for reading, big hugs to you!!! :3

They all ended up crammed at the living room, passed out from drinking. Damen realized of it when he felt the strike of lightning against his eyes, scintillating, blinding him all of the sudden. He felt his head throbbing immediately in response and he couldn’t stifle a groan right on time. When he opened his eyes, squinting against the blinding light, he managed to see the wide smile above him. This was a particular aspect of Laurent: despite his usual impassive, expressionless face, there was a myriad of expressions within him, and they all suited him in a different way. As Damen stared at this smile, he saw nothing but happiness and simplicity behind his expression. No need to hide, the smile open in a way Damen hadn’t had the chance to witness before. There was silence around them, so he guessed the rest of the guys hadn’t been as affected by the light as him, although he _was_ the one closest to the window.  
   
“Fuck _you_ ”, he said, blinking, wondering if he’d been blinded by the light or by Laurent’s smile.  
   
“I do remember recommending you not to drink too much”.  
   
“I feel like if I open my eyes I’m going to die”.  
   
“I would love to see that”.  
   
Damen took a couple of steady breaths until he felt his head had stopped spinning and he slowly sat up. Laurent was sitting next to him on the giant rug in the middle of his living room. Nik was at the other corner of the bedroom and Erasmus and Pallas had grabbed the sofas. Damen blinked once, then twice. He finally fixed his eyes on Laurent, who was handing him something, which, Damen realized, ended up being a glass of water and a couple of pills. He swallowed them and smiled at him. “Thank you”, he whispered.  
   
“What if I poisoned them?”, Laurent asked playfully.  
   
Damen shrugged with a small smile, grimacing a little bit as he felt another throb in his head in response to the smile. “This hungover is going to kill me any way”.  
   
Laurent smiled.  
   
“How did you sleep last night?”, Damen asked him.  
   
Laurent nodded. “Better than I expected. I suppose I found an odd sort of comfort on the fact four drunk giants were at the living room and so they could stop my uncle if he showed up. I, of course, was miscalculating just how drunk you would get”.  
   
Damen groaned. “Ugh. I hate it”.  
   
“Pathetic”, Laurent replied. Just as he was about to say something else, they heard a low groan from the other side of the bedroom and they found Nik sitting up and staring at them. Laurent’s expression changed immediately, in a way that surprised Damen, his features closing off at the moment his eyes fixed on Nik, kind of like if he was shielding himself behind an invisible armor.  
   
“This is it. This is how I die”, Nik said, his voice raspy.  
   
Laurent turned to look at Damen. “I take it you both have a flare for the dramatic”.  
   
“I take it you’ve never woken up to a light so intense you feel like your brain is exploding”.  
   
“Could you please _shut up?_ ”, Nik said loudly. A moment later he opened his eyes, which seemed lost for a second before he focused on the two figures sitting in front of him. His eyes widened but he didn’t say anything. The conversation they held the night before came back to haunt Damen and he rubbed his eyebrows exasperatedly.  
   
Laurent crossed his arms. “Didn’t expect to find you here at the morning, Nikandros. Certainly not a pleasant view to walk into”.  
   
“Trust me, deVere, the feeling is mutual”.  
   
“Hello, Nik”, Damen said, greeting him.  
   
Nik greeted him back and then he fidgeted uncomfortable. “Ugh, I have to pee but I’m afraid to stand up”.  
   
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you’d pee your pants. You should be used to it by now”, was all Laurent replied.  
   
Damen exhaled loudly.  
   
Nik’s eyes widened and he turned to look at Damen and Laurent in a rush. “You _told_ him?”  
   
Laurent was looking at Damen with a mischievous smile. “I’m going to kill you”, he mouthed to Laurent.  
   
“I-”, Damen started.  
   
“You fucking told him after you _promised_ me you’d keep this a secret, you fucking-”  
   
“Keep what a secret?”, they heard a voice behind them.  
   
“That Nikandros was so scared by a bear that he peed his pants”, Laurent replied, clearly reveling on this moment.  
   
Damen turned to look at him, “fucking hell, Laurent!”  
   
Nicaise broke in laughter. “Oh my _God!_ ”, he said.  
   
Nik glanced at Laurent with murderous eyes, the hangover seemingly forgotten after the shock. He strode forward while Laurent stood still, his arms crossed. Damen stepped up. “You are _not_ going to hit him”, he said firmly.  
   
Nik stopped, his nostrils flaring in anger. “I can’t believe you did that, Damianos”, he said before turning dramatically and heading out.  
   
“Nikandros, wait!”, Laurent said, out of nowhere. Nik turned for a moment and fixed his attention on him. “I sincerely hope you can make it to the bathroom”.  
   
Nik clenched his fists and kept walking on.  
   
Damen looked at Laurent disapprovingly. “Why did you do that, Laurent?”  
   
Laurent sat on the armrest of one of the couches, where Pallas was still passed out. “I told you not to share that kind of information”.  
   
Damen frowned and stood silent for a moment. “Yeah. Lesson learned. Thanks a lot”, he said, walking away and heading towards the kitchen.  
   
Nik walked out of the room a couple of minutes later, his posture still rigid, denoting the anger within him. Damen had learnt how to read him perfectly through time, which was why he knew exactly what to say. “I truly am sorry”.  
   
“Yeah I don’t give a fuck if you’re sorry or not”, Nik said, pushing him out of the way.  
   
“Nik, he just, he had just had a nightmare and I wanted to cheer him up, I wanted to see him smile. Your secret is safe with him”.  
   
“Is it?”, Nik asked, angrily.  
   
Damen opened his mouth and closed it immediately. Was it? He didn’t know how to reply to that.  
He thought for a moment about all the things he’d shared with him during the time they’d known one another: his parents, Kastor, Jokaste, oh god _he’d told him about Jokaste_. A wave of regret so instant rushed to him, and he swallowed against the dizziness and the nausea, telling himself that Laurent _was not like this._  
  
And as fast as the wave of regret had hit him, he remembered: his parents, his uncle, his abdomen, Auguste, Nicaise. Laurent had said it all to him. All of it. Despite the wariness between one another, despite the fact at some point he must have felt _this_ too, he went on and he did it. Damen had given him the ammunition to destroy him, but Laurent had given it to him as well. They wouldn’t hurt one another, because they’d make sure to break the other on their way down.  
   
He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I just know”, he whispered, “trust me”.  
   
Nik seemed unconvinced.  
   
“Listen, I _know_ there’s bad blood between the two of you. I know that. But he’s not like that. That’s not all there is to him. I’ve trusted him with so many things, Nik, and he’s loyal and trustworthy, and certainly a higher man than _this_. I know I shouldn’t have told him that, I know I did wrong and _I’m sorry_ ”.  
   
Nik sighed. “Fuck you and your falling in love with every bitch that crosses your path”.  
   
“He’s nice, I promise”.  
   
“I’m not taking your word for it. You’re too blind”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “And yet I feel like I can see right through him”.  
   
Nik rolled his eyes.  
   
“Do you forgive me?”  
   
“Do I have any other choice?”  
   
“I love you”.  
   
A sigh. “I love you too, you fucking asshole”.  
   
“Plus, we need to have a conversation over a certain someone whose name starts with a J and ends with an ‘ord’ soon”.  
   
Nik groaned. “Not today please”.  
   
“When we go back to school?”  
   
“Fine”.  
   
“You won’t run away from it”.  
   
“You don’t know me well enough then”.  
   
“I’m saying it because I know you well enough”.  
   
******  
   
The guys left early in the afternoon, all looking like shit after drinking too much. Nik forgave Damen but had chosen to ignore Laurent, and to be honest, Damen didn’t feel like talking to him either. He just couldn’t understand Laurent. At one moment, he was waking Damen up with pills and water for his hungover, at the next, he was insulting Nik and making fun of him. He just didn’t know which side of Laurent he had to face.  
   
Laurent noticed it, of course, and instead of talking to Damen to clarify everything, he retreated to his room to pack his things, for they would have to go back to school in two days. Damen let him be and he settled with playing soccer with Nicaise at the backyard.  
   
He went downstairs sometime later and by the time Damen and Nicaise came back, he was serving dinner for the three of them. And that didn’t help. Damen just couldn’t understand what to make of all of it. Was this his way of expressing regret? Was he reading too much into it? He sat at the table and joked with Nicaise for a while, until Laurent sat with them. Nicaise could clearly sense that something was wrong, so he chose to lead the conversation throughout dinner, taking a bit of the awkwardness off their shoulders. As soon as they were done, he ran to his Xbox and Damen grabbed the dishes to wash them. A moment later, he could see the outline of a silhouette out of the corner of his eye.  
   
Damen stopped scrubbing the plate and closed his eyes for a moment, still feeling angry and not quite knowing what to say.  
   
“That’s just what I do, Damen”, Laurent replied in a whisper.  
   
The conversation felt oddly intimate. Damen hated it. Damen loved it.  
   
“So that’s your excuse for everything?”  
   
“Not an excuse”, Laurent said, walking towards him, “just an explanation”.  
   
Damen turned to look at him. God, he was so beautiful. He shook his head out of those thoughts and carried on, “I just-”, he started but didn’t know how to finish. He dragged a deep breath, “this is getting tiresome, Laurent”.  
   
“This?”                                                                                                 
   
“I never know where to stand with you. I don’t know if I should trust you or if you’re gaining my trust to break me. I don’t know if your smiles are genuine, I don’t know if you’re grateful with me or if you’re just looking for the next chance to destroy me, I just don’t know.  
   
“And yet, I do know, I think I do, because I see that small glint in your eyes and those tiny wrinkles in your face whenever you smile which tell me that you’re not that good an actor, but I don’t know if I can trust my instincts, for they’d betrayed me before, but I want to trust my instincts _so badly_. Because I love this, this side of you I’m just starting to get to know, I love this easiness in which we can go from fighting to confiding in one another. I just, I don’t know”.  
   
Laurent had remained expressionless and silent while Damen poured it all there in the open. After the silence dragged on for too long, he simply nodded. “I think time will tell”, was all he said, leaving the kitchen.  
   
And that didn’t help Damen one bit.  
   
*******  
   
The next couple of days were awkward, neither Damen nor Laurent knowing how to behave around one another, which was unusual, because they’d just started getting to know how to feel comfortable with the other. Nicaise sensed it too, the tension in the environment, but he didn’t mention it, he focused on finishing his homework while Laurent helped him and Damen focused on packing and cleaning everything he’d left at the house.  
   
And then it was time to go back to school. And Damen hated it with every single fiber of his being, because he knew that as soon as they stepped onto the campus, that week they’d spent at his house would become just a fading, aging memory. Nothing would change, not really. In a sense, they were back to square one, only with more secrets around them.  
   
He drove them in his car and Nicaise gave him a hug after making sure no one was around them to see him. “Thank you for letting us stay at your place”, he whispered against his chest. And then, “you should seriously consider starting a diet, I can’t make my fucking hands meet”.  
   
Damen laughed, “duly noted”, he replied.  
   
And then Nicaise was gone and Laurent was looking at him, his expression softly conveying the same sort of uncertainty Damen was feeling at the moment. “I don’t want the truce to be over”, he repeated what he’d said some nights ago, feeling that he needed to leave that clear.  
   
“I told you, it isn’t over”.  
   
“And yet, something is different”.  
   
“Nothing is different, Damianos, I’m still grateful for what you’ve done and I will respect you, because you’ve earned it”.  
   
Everything was different. At least for Damen, everything was. Because he still felt the touch of Laurent’s caress against his wrists, where the pencil stabs were still healing, because he closed his eyes and he could feel Laurent breathing in front of him, so close and so quietly, as he softly touched his bicep and whispered to let go off his foot. Because every single word they’d shared at the backyard was still imprinted on his memory and there was no way he could let all that go, not that easily. And it certainly wasn’t easy when he would have to return to share rooms with him, because he was growing clumsy and desperate, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how much he wanted to kiss Laurent.  
   
“But”, a voice brought him out of his reverie.  
   
“But?”, he asked, breathlessly.  
   
“We’re roommates. That’s all we are. That’s just how it is between us”.  
   
 _That’s not all there is between us,_ Damen thought, his heart clenching. He blinked, forcing himself to suppress every expression that might give him away. “I never thought otherwise”, a blatant lie.  
   
Laurent pretended to believe it. To believe him. He nodded warily. “Good, I’ll see you later”, he said, walking away.  
   
Damen was left there, in the middle of the parking lot, questioning every single thing that had happened the week before.  
   
******  
   
That night, when Damen came back to their room, Laurent had already unpacked everything and was sitting on his own bed. Damen didn’t know how to approach him, what to say now, how to say it. The problem wasn’t if Laurent was going back to being an asshole, that didn’t worry Damen in the slightest, for he would be an asshole either way, but what truly worried him was if that comradery they’d had towards one another was over and replaced by animosity. Damen hated thinking about it. Hated it in the same way he felt the storm approaching the moment he walked out of their parents’ house and stood at the front yard staring into nothingness as he desperately tried to erase the image of Kastor and Jokaste fucking. He could almost listen to the first thunders, could almost feel those small, soft drops of water falling from the sky, announcing the impending storm.  
   
Laurent looked up from the bed. “Oh good, you’re here”.  
   
Damen looked around awkwardly. “I am”.  
   
“I’m reading the paper for the last time before handing it tomorrow”, he said, turning to look back at the stack of sheets he was holding, “please take a look at it and tell me what you think”.  
   
The paper? What the hell was he talking about? Damen was far too distracted by Laurent that he could barely make out the meaning behind his words. When he didn’t reply, Laurent looked up again and put the paper down. Damen was still eyeing him warily. Laurent exhaled loudly. “What?”, he asked.  
   
Damen shook his head and blinked himself out of his stupor. “Nothing. Is it due for tomorrow?”  
   
Laurent nodded and handed Damen the paper wordlessly.  
   
Damen took it and sat at his own bed, Laurent looking at nothing in particular, as if pondering on what he’d just read.  
   
He read it carefully. It was 10 pages long. When he was done, he looked up with a smile. “I like it”, he said, feeling slightly relieved to be distracted from the tempest inside his head.  
   
Laurent nodded and bit his thumb thoughtfully. “Of course you do”.  
   
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
   
“Nothing”, Laurent said simply, “I just feel like there’s something missing”.  
   
“Well, we could have explained the process of transformation of the pigments a little better”.  
   
Laurent nodded in agreement. “Yes, I think we could”.  
   
Damen fidgeted. “Do you want us to?”, he asked lowly.  
   
Laurent looked at Damen for a moment, still biting his thumb, considering. Damen couldn’t help but reach out and move Laurent’s thumb away. “Don’t bite your nails. They’re pretty, you’ll ruin them”, he said simply, fixing his eyes back on the paper a second later, and focusing hard on not replaying the feeling of his hand touching his skin.  
   
Laurent’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t tell me what to do”, he said, but with no bite to it, it was as if it was something he was used to saying.  
   
“Never would have thought of it”, he said with a small smile as he kept going through the paper but not really reading it.  
   
“Do _you_ want us to?”, Laurent asked, carefully.  
   
Damen shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. We want a good grade and this might help improve it”. _And I love working with you and I wouldn’t mind some extra time by your side,_ he didn’t say.  
   
Laurent nodded and pulled his laptop off the bed and towards his lap.  
   
Damen smiled. “Of course you had your laptop ready”. That was the most Laurent thing in the world.  
   
“Needed your consent first”, Laurent replied.  
   
Damen forced himself to wipe the smile off his face as he sat next to Laurent, their shoulders brushing. He could _feel_ Laurent’s powerful presence by his side, dragging him in like a magnet, and he was unable to stop it. Laurent turned to look at him and Damen had to swallow the feeling away, for the blue of his eyes seemed capable of stopping time itself.  
   
Damen fixed his attention on the laptop and started talking to Laurent about what they should add.  
   
They spent the next couple of hours making sure what they were adding was right and by the end they were exhausted, Damen’s eyes closing without him even intending to. Laurent turned to look at him and said loudly, “oh! I think we should add some illustrations about-”  
   
Damen’s eyes flew opened and he was immediately flooded by terror mixed with surprise. His sleep-addled eyes focused on Laurent and realized that he was laughing loudly. Damen exhaled, part relief, part annoyance. “Oh _fuck_ ”.  
   
Laurent kept laughing. “…Your face”, he said breathlessly.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop himself from smiling as well. “Yes, yes, very funny, can I go to sleep now?”  
   
Laurent didn’t quite manage to stifle a yawn and Damen’s smile widened. He looked adorable. A second later, he nodded. “Yes”.  
   
“Seems like you need it yourself, too”.  
   
Laurent turned to look at Damen, blushing a little after yawning, as if there was still some kind of tension within himself about whether to portray himself as human or not. Damen couldn’t stop smiling. “Yes, you need it too”, Laurent said, lifting his hand, “look at those awful bags beneath your eyes”, he said quietly, softly touching Damen’s bags.  
   
Damen dragged a deep breath, overcome by emotions, but before he even managed to process them, the hand was gone and the only evidence that the touch had even happened at all was in Damen’s heartbeat. Damn his tell-tale heart.  
   
“Goodnight, Laurent”.  
   
“Goodnight _partner,_ get up early tomorrow or I will kill you with my bare hands”.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A small trigger warning for a bit of violence in this chapter, but nothing too serious. If you feel triggered by it, please let me know and I can provide a summary of it! Thank you so much for reading and following this story! x

That first week, they had their first match for the state championship, so they had to train _hard_ and commit themselves to work their asses off.  
   
Which Damen found to be a difficult task when all he wanted to do was kick the teeth off Govart’s face.  
   
Yes, Govart was back.  
   
With a predatory smile, with his height and his weight, with a sense of hatred against the rest of the world exacerbated by an elevated ego which was the result of years of being the captain of the football team and getting everything and anyone he ever wanted, Govart was back.  
   
And Damen wanted to _kill him._  
   
How could he act like this? How could he walk into the field as if he was the lord and savior? How could he after how he’d left Laurent?  
   
As soon as Govart joined them on the field, Nik threw Damen a worried glance, knowing exactly what was going through his head.  
   
And he was so very right. Damen was certain he was looking at that brute with murderous eyes.  
   
But the rest of the team didn’t notice. They all went cheerfully to hug Govart and pat him in the back, while Nik shook Damen’s shoulder. “Be careful”.  
   
“You saw how he left Laurent”.  
   
“That’s not your problem, Damen, don’t get in trouble for something you have nothing to do with”, Nik said calmly.  
   
Damen sighed. Nik was right, technically speaking, he had nothing to with it, but the image came immediately to his mind, the image of that purple bruise against Laurent’s pristine, soft skin, as if that skin was meant to be destroyed, broken, bruised and scarred, instead of cherished and loved. And the image repeated itself like a déjà vu, and he remembered the moment when Laurent looked at him, vulnerability written in his eyes, and he lifted his t-shirt, showing the once again purpled skin after his uncle had beaten him and Damen _couldn’t bear it._ He simply couldn’t. He felt the anger inside him. _My fingers touching his skin, both of us looking and knowing what it was. A caress. A caress meant to erase all the wrong that had been done before._  
   
Nik was calling his name. Bringing him back to the present.  
   
Damen blinked and looked at him. He swallowed the anger and the raw, aching need driving him forward, filling him with adrenaline, and he focused it somewhere else.  
   
Nik was right, after all. This was not his battle to fight, despite how hard he tried to convince himself of it, and despite how badly he wanted it to be.  
   
*****  
  
During training, he was on fire. His muscles tingled with barely concealed excitement at a point where he couldn’t tell if he was feeling anger or just the rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins.  
   
But he was right on track.  
   
And Govart didn’t like that either. Damen supposed that could be his revenge by now.  
   
When they finished practice and returned to the lockers, Govart pushed him against them, ‘amiably’.  
   
Damen huffed.  
   
“Good practice, big guy”, Govart told Damen, who was still by the lockers.  
   
Damen felt the anger still palpitating inside him. “Don’t call me big guy”, he said, pushing him away and walking by the lockers, his hands clenching into fists.  
   
Govart noticed it and smirked. “So, did you miss me?”, he asked him.  
   
Damen swallowed. Nik was still in the shower and he needed someone rational to keep him from doing something stupid, soon.  
   
“Counting down the days”, Damen said, sharply.  
   
“Bet you loved it, didn’t you?, being the _captain,_ taking what’s mine, as if you own it. Too bad your time is up and you still didn’t prove yourself fit enough to be captain”.  
   
Damen shrugged. “Not being fit enough to be captain worked good enough for you, why wouldn’t for me?”  
   
Govart raised his eyebrow. “You want it, don’t you?”  
   
“I don’t give a shit about being the captain, since you own the title, it has lost the respect we had for it”.  
   
Govart clenched his jaw. “You’re different”, he told Damen, almost as if he was studying him.  
   
Damen crossed his arms and stared at him defiantly. He was as strong as Govart, he could tell that much. Whatever else Govart had, was just a cumulus of fat. Damen knew he had everything to destroy him, and that that fat could only be a disadvantage.  
   
Something seemed to click inside Govart and he gasped with realization, his eyes lighting. Damen knew in that moment that there was no turning back.  
   
“You’re his roommate”, Govart replied, a smile in place. “You’re that little bitch’s roommate”.  
   
Damen’s nostrils flared. “Who?”  
   
“Of course you are”, he said confidently, “are you fucking him?”  
   
Damen swallowed against the nausea threatening to rise. He didn’t reply.  
   
“I bet you’re fucking him”, he said with a scoff, “submissive, isn’t he?”  
   
Damen’s eyes widened.  
   
“Must be squeaky in bed, but I have to say, I see the appeal”.  
   
Damen didn’t dare to breathe. He was afraid breathing would be too much for him, would drive him over the edge.  
   
   
“And yet, he wouldn’t bend for me. Too bad, I would have loved to pull that hair as he sucked my dick. How did you get him to do it for you? He didn’t quell after I punched his nuts off”.  
   
He supposed he had no one rational to keep him from doing something stupid.  
   
Govart, who was too distracted talking shit, was taken off guard long enough for Damen to throw him to the ground.  
   
After that, all Damen saw was red. Red invading him, absorbing him, turning into black, darkness, anger, rage, he wanted to kill him. He felt it acutely, every punch against muscle, against fat, against bone. He heard something cracking. Everything was silent. He could feel the blood pounding through his ears, he felt his face growing hot, his brain attempting to find some reasoning amidst the chaos.  
   
A minute, a second, two minutes, two seconds, or somewhere in between later, he felt a lot of sets of hands dragging him back, unsuccessfully.  
   
He didn’t mind. Another punch. Then another. His hands were flying gracefully in the air. He was driven by a force so foreign he couldn’t explain it himself.  
   
Then a voice, “DAMIANOS!”, he heard Nik shouting distantly.  
   
And the sets of hands were back, and this time, he allowed himself to be dragged back. He blinked once, twice, and then red faded to grey and then he was in a dimly lit and very stinky locker room. He looked down, Govart has unconscious, his face a mess.  
   
Nik was looking at Damen gravely, horror and fear and anger converging somewhere between his eyebrows.  
   
Then their coach came rushing in.  
   
“What the fuck!”, Nik yelled at Damen.  
   
Damen was only trying to get his breathing under control, but it felt like such a difficult task at the moment. His brain was screaming at him, louder than anything Nik could ever yell at him.  
   
 _He tried to rape Laurent._  
  
“What?”  
   
Damen blinked. Nik was looking at him in wonder, flabbergasted.  
   
He’d said it. Fuck. He’d said it. He looked around and realized they were the only ones in the back, while everyone else focused on Govart.  
   
“He did what?”, Nik whispered again.  
   
Damen looked at him. “I need to find him, Nik”, he said, starting to walk away.  
   
“DeAkielos!!!!”  
   
Their coach’s yell was louder than the voices in his brain. He stopped in his tracks.  
   
“To the principal’s office”, couch Enguerran said. “NOW!”  
   
Everyone turned to look at Damen. A second later, Halvik came rushing in, two other nurses in stride with her, and they took Govart to the infirmary in a gurney.  
   
Minutes later, he was at the principal’s office.  
   
The words went by in a blur, he kept his eyes fixed on his hands, all filled with spots of red, a red as deep as the tone which had invaded his every thought. He heard something in the background, words alone that made no sense to his thought-addled brain which only kept screaming at him that Govart had tried to _fuck_ Laurent.  
   
‘Disappointed’. ‘Terrible’. ‘Unconscious’. ‘Blood’. The principal’s words came and went by his brain. He didn’t care. He didn’t regret it.  
   
 _Expelled,_ he heard.  
   
 _Laurent alone,_ he thought.  
   
He blinked. “No!”, he replied, the first thing he said since he walked into the office.  
   
The principal was taken aback.  
   
“No, please, you can’t expel me”.  
   
The principal slipped into another long string of words, Damen didn’t hear them. He kept his eyes on his hands. His knuckles were starting to ache.  
   
Something about ‘Govart’, ‘causing trouble’, ‘fighting’.  
   
And then, ‘Kastor’.  
   
Damen snipped back into the present. “What?”, he whispered.  
   
“Since your parents are-”, the principal cleared his throat, “unavailable”, he said, at a loss for what else to say.  
   
“Dead”, Damen said, looking up and staring at him, feeling aghast.  
   
“Dead”, the principal replied, the awkwardness palpable, “I might have to call Kastor”.  
   
Damen was standing up without intending to. “No”. He closed his eyes, fought against the pain. “No”, he said, more calmly this time.  
   
He sat once again. “Please”, he swallowed, “he’s studying right now, busy, at another state. We can’t possibly disrupt him”. A string of lie after lie after lie.  
   
The principal considered him for a moment. “What you did was very serious”.  
   
“I _know_ that and I’m sorry”.  
   
“You are?”  
   
“I am”. A string of lies.  
   
The principal sighed. “You’ve never caused any trouble before, Damianos, what changed this time?”  
   
He knew he couldn’t say something like _he deserved it. He had it coming. He is an asshole. He tried to rape the most wonderful human being in the world._ “It should have never happened. I apologize”.  
   
“You’ll be suspended for a week”.  
   
Damen sighed in relief.  
   
“If this happens again, you’ll be expelled”.  
   
“It won’t, sir”, Damen replied. Then he rubbed his head. “Can I ask you something?”  
   
The principal nodded.  
   
“May I stay here? I have no home”.  
   
“What about your family home?”  
   
“We sold the house. Whenever I leave, I go to Kastor’s room at the campus. This is all we have now”. Another lie.  
   
It worked, apparently. The principal nodded and Damen walked out of the room, feeling a weight lifting off his shoulders.  
   
But not quite.  
   
He then went to Enguerran’s office, who was looking at him with an expression Damen hadn’t seen in his face before. Damen felt guilt creeping over him. “You wanted to see me?”, he asked, innocently.  
   
Enguerran sighed. “Would you care to explain what the hell happened?”  
   
Damen shrugged.  
   
“Do you realize what’s happening here? I’ll explain it to you. You just beat my quarterback into a fucking pulp and you got suspended, which means that I’ve lost my two best players four days before the _fucking_ state championship begins”.  
   
“I’m sorry, I truly am”.  
   
Enguerran sat thoughtfully for a moment. “Here’s what we’ll do, Damianos, because I can’t give myself the luxury of losing _two_ players”.  
   
Damen nodded.  
   
“Govart will be off for two weeks. You’ll play this match. As soon as he’s back, you’re gone”.  
   
Damen’s jaw dropped. “I- I… I’m _gone?_ ”, he asked in disbelief.  
   
“Yes. You’re off the team. Now get out of here before I change my mind and pull you off the next match”.  
   
Damen walked out in a rush. As soon as he closed the door behind it, he realized Nik was waiting for him, sitting on a bench, holding a sandwich out for Damen, who barely managed a weak smile and a shake of his head before sitting next to him.  
   
“I got suspended for a week”.  
   
Nik exhaled. “You were lucky”.  
   
“I know. But I’ve been expelled from the team”.  
   
Nik’s eyes widened. “What?”  
   
Damen nodded.  
   
“Fuck”.  
   
“Ditto”.  
   
“When will you stop thinking with your dick, Damen?”, Nik asked him.  
   
Damen shook his head. “I really don’t want to talk about it, Nik”, he replied.  
   
Nik nodded and just stood there next to him, silently.  
   
*****  
   
It was late at night when he came back to his bedroom. Laurent hadn’t arrived yet. Damen was only hoping he wouldn’t find out.  
   
He sat on his bed, feeling numb and exhausted. He rubbed his muscles and took a quick shower.  
   
As soon as he tucked into his pajamas, the door opened widely and soundly.  
   
Damen turned to look in a rush. Laurent was staring at him.  
   
The signs were clear.  
   
And yet, they weren’t. For any normal person, Laurent would just look like his usual self, regal and composed and above everyone and everything.  
   
But Damen noticed.  
   
He noticed those small signs, like his rushed breathing, like the white of his nails after he pressed them against something for too long, like that little redness at the spot where he’d bitten his lip.  
   
And Damen _knew._  
  
And Laurent did, too.  
   
Damen stood up.  
   
“You got suspended”, he said coldly, matter-of-factly.  
   
“News sure travel fast, don’t they?”  
   
“Suspended for a week”.  
   
Damn it. Nik had told Jord. He was certain.  
   
“For beating Govart”, Laurent continued.  
   
Damen looked away.  
   
“For _fucking_ beating Govart!”, Laurent exclaimed. “What the fuck, Damianos?”, he said, his voice suddenly invaded by a feeling Damen couldn’t name but one he certainly didn’t feel comfortable listening to.  
   
Damen walked towards him.  
   
Laurent took a step back and rose a finger. “Don’t. You. Come. Close. To. Me”, he said, breathlessly, “or I’ll get suspended for a week as well for kicking your fucking ass”.  
   
“Laurent-”  
   
“No, you shut up”.  
   
Damen did.  
   
“What was the first thing I told you when it happened?”  
   
Damen knew, he remembered it quite well. “That you didn’t need saving”.  
   
“And here I thought you were stupid”, Laurent replied bitterly, sarcastically.  
   
It ached. “Laurent-”  
   
“I don’t care what your excuse is. I don’t care what you’ll shield behind. _I don’t care._ Because you just confirmed me that you _are_ that brute. After I told you-”  
   
“But what he did-”  
   
“I don’t need saving! Apparently I have to repeat it again because the first time I was not clear. Should I draw it for you?”  
   
Damen was growing angry, yet again.  
   
“I’m not yours to save, Damianos. I fight my own battles. I don’t need a giant defending me”.  
   
Damen closed his eyes. It hurt more than it should.  
   
“And I don’t need your compassion”.  
   
His heart was racing, yet again, frustration invading him.  
   
“Go find someone to fuck, some damsel in distress if that turns you on so much, and leave _me_ alone”.  
   
And with that, he left, shutting the door loudly behind him. Damen sat on the bed and he grabbed a pillow, screaming into it.  
   
What the hell had happened? Everything had been fine that morning. Now he’d fucked everything up. He was off the team and he’d ruined everything with Laurent. Damen knew he shouldn’t have done that, but the way Govart had referred to him? As if he was some other object? Another ass for him to penetrate? Damen felt sick to his very core.  
   
He laid on his bed, waiting for Laurent to calm down and go back to their room. Laurent used to do that, in those bursts of anger. He lost all sense of control and it was the one rare occasion where he allowed himself to hurt everyone else around him without even thinking about it, and he’d done just that. And Damen deserved it.  
   
Hours passed. Laurent didn’t return. Damen called him, he didn’t pick up the phone.  
   
He’d fucked up everything.  
   
A second later, his phone rang with a text alert. Damen couldn’t unlock it fast enough.  
   
Sent [12:30 m.]  
 _Hey._  
  
It was Nik. Damen sighed and threw the phone aside.  
   
The phone pinged again. Damen picked it up.  
  
Sent [12:31 m.]  
 _Care to explain to me what your roommate is doing knocking at our door at midnight?_  
  
Damen felt instant relief invading him.  
   
Sent [12:32 m.]  
 **I fucked up.**  
  
Sent [12:33 m.]  
 _Yeah, I can tell that much._  
 _He’s staying with us tonight, by the way._  
  
Sent [12:34 m.]  
 **Please take care of him. And try to not make him hate me even more.**  
  
Sent [12:35 m.]  
 _It’s okay. Jord got him a sleeping bag. The same you slept in the first night of the schoolyear._  
  
Damen smiled at the memory and at the irony of it all.  
   
Sent [12:36 m.]  
 **It’s over, Nik.**  
  
Sent [12:38 m.]  
 **And it never began, but, I just, I thought for a moment…maybe…**  
  
Sent [12:38 m.]  
 _Yes. I saw you two at your house. I notice things, Damen, I’m not blind._  
  
Sent [12:40 m.]  
 **Yes and you’re not a mute, either.**  
 **You told Jord about it, didn’t you?**  
   
Sent [12:40 m.]  
 _Whoops. Was hoping you wouldn’t notice._  
  
Sent [12:41 m.]  
 **We’ll talk about it tomorrow.**  
  
Sent [12:41 m.]  
 _Kay._  
  
Sent [12:43 m.]  
 _Are you angry?_  
  
Sent [12:46 m.]  
 **No, just… I don’t know, everything’s a mess right now.**  
  
Sent [12:47 m.]  
 _Laurent knows I’m talking to you._  
 _He just threw me a glance that will haunt me in my nightmares._  
  
Sent [12:50 m.]  
 **Tell him I’m sorry.**  
  
Sent [12:51 m.]  
 _He just threatened to throw my phone into the window._  
 _Fuck, he just stood up._  
  
Damen fought back a smile that then turned into a grimace. He’d ruined everything.  
   
Sent [12:52 m.]  
 **Tell him I say goodnight.**  
  
Sent [12:55 m.]  
 _He just said, ‘tell him to shove it’._  
 _I call that progress._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SORRY AND I PROMISE YOU THINGS WILL GET BETTER SO SO SO SOON!!!! Next chapter will be up next week so I won't keep you on hold for too long, I'm sorry and I love you and I promise everything will be nice and pretty and perfect very soon. IM SORRY!!!


	19. Chapter 19

Laurent came back the next day, but he chose to ignore Damen.  
   
He did it the next day as well, and the day after that.  
   
By Thursday, Damen was going mad. He trained during the afternoons but most of the team hated him now, and he spent the rest of his time at their bedroom, which meant, of course, that Laurent was definitely avoiding going anywhere near that room until very, very late at night. Whenever he arrived, he would just walk in, no ‘hello’, no ‘goodnight’, no ‘goodbye’, nothing, ice, cold, darkness, sadness, solace, Damen hated it. It wasn’t like their first months together as roommates, when most of Damen’s actions would elicit a reaction from Laurent, most of them negative, but that at least was something, not this feeling that he was invisible, that Laurent didn’t wish to acknowledge him, didn’t care enough to acknowledge him. He supposed, after all, that that was Laurent’s way of sticking to his side of the truce, but it was exhausting.  
   
So that night, he chose to say something about it.  
   
And when he tried to do it, he found out he had nothing to say about it.  
   
That was not quite true, though, he had a lot to say but he had no idea of _how_ to say it.  
   
So he came up with the only thing he could say, a whispered, and more broken that he would have liked to admit, “Laurent”.  
   
Laurent, who was getting ready to go to sleep and was folding his clothes while standing in front of the bed, his back turned to Damen, stood still.  
   
“Laurent”, Damen said once again.  
   
No response.  
   
“Laurent, you _promised_ ”, Damen whispered brokenly. _You said ‘with time, we could’, you told me it would be different and I can’t accept otherwise, not after you shared it all with me, not after I told you everything I was keeping buried, not after you touched my hand, not after I saw the small smile in your face while nothing but a couple of particles of air stood between us, your hand on my arm, my hand on your foot, a shared secret we didn’t dare to speak aloud. Not after that. Please,_ he didn’t say.  
   
Laurent scrunched the t-shirt he was folding but it was the only clear sign that he’d heard what Damen had said.  
   
A second later. “Don’t”, Laurent said.  
   
Damen stood silent. Then a sigh and then an endless waiting.  
   
“Not now”, was all Laurent said.  
   
And with that, he walked into the bathroom.  
   
At least that was something.  
   
*****  
   
The next morning, Laurent walked into their room, which was a surprise on itself. He did so in a rush, as if pushed by the wind, as if he carried with him the legacy of Boreas. Damen realized this was how Laurent walked into a room, like a powerful, destructive, nurturing, healing, damaging force, demanding to be listened, to be heard, to be felt. Demanding without doing it, without needing to, because the whistle of his steps and the rumble of his hair was enough to grasp your attention and never give it back.  
   
Damen was trying to write an essay he had for next week. He looked up from his laptop.  
   
Laurent didn’t say a word, but he did fix his eyes on Damen. A second later, he was in front of him, staring at him deeply, and handing something to him. Damen frowned, unable to piece what it was, for his mind was in an entirely different place at the moment. He couldn’t think, couldn’t act, couldn’t react, because the blue of Laurent’s eyes against the dim light coming from the window was almost intoxicating. He forced his body to respond and he grabbed the paper from him, questioningly. Laurent didn’t say a word.  
   
And with that, he left, leaving behind the echo of his presence, the cold and the heat and the life and the death of his stance.  
   
Damen frowned. Whatever it must have been, it was intended for him. Laurent had averted his eyes and ignored him as much as possible during the last couple of days, but this time, it was as if his energy, his direction and his speed were aimed at Damen, intended to crash against him, to make his presence known. He put the laptop away and stared at the documents in his hand.  
   
It was their biology project.  
   
They’d gotten an A+.  
   
Damen smiled and swallowed against the burden of memories past, against memories of cypresses and willows and shared secrets and small smiles and chilling air and tiny tents and silent stares.  
   
******  
   
Despite the initial turmoil, Nik wasn’t able to evade the conversation he had to have with Damen, regardless of how much he tried to avoid it.  
   
“I don’t want to talk about it”, Nik groaned as they sat on the cafeteria and Damen brought the topic up.  
   
“Too bad, because you will have to”.  
   
Nik squeezed his eyes shut. “How about you spend the next half hour explaining how much you’re pining for Laurent while I pretend to be listening and then I tell you that he’s an asshole and not worth it and we never bring this topic up again anymore?”  
   
“Nope”.  
   
“Sounds like a neat idea to me”.  
   
“We can do that at any other time, I’m pretty sure I have _lots_ of things to say about him”.  
   
“Yeah, I don’t want to hear them”.  
   
“Talk to me about Jord, then”.  
   
Nik groaned. “There’s nothing to tell!”, he exclaimed, tapping his foot loudly. “Literally nothing”.  
   
“Tell me how you realized you had a crush on him”.  
   
“No!”  
   
“Nik! We’re best friends! I want the best for you, and I want to help you be with him”, Damen insisted, “now tell me!”  
   
Nik rolled his eyes. “I hate you”, he said, sitting up straight. “Fine, _fine_ , we were at our room and he had just come out of the shower and his blond hair was over his eyes and I was telling him a joke or something and he just gave me the widest smile and I knew right then and there that I was pretty fucking lost, happy?”  
   
Damen smiled fondly. “I heard him and Aimeric are hitting a bit of a rocky path”.  
   
“Now you’re just saying that so I can be hopeful and annoying and stupid like you are being”.  
   
Damen laughed loudly, “no, my friend, I know I have zero to none opportunities with Laurent”, then his eyes widened and he looked around, realizing he’d actually said that aloud, so he carried on speaking in a lower tone, “but I’m putting my money on you two. I think you could make it”.  
   
Nik scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know, Damen, it’s complicated. We’ve become close friends lately, we talk about lots of things and it’s pretty cool, and-”, he fidgeted for a second.  
   
“You’re scared if you do anything else you’ll ruin your friendship”, Damen filled in.  
   
“Exactly. I’m content as it is. Well, not exactly ecstatic but good enough, and I don’t want to do anything else”.  
   
“For now”.  
   
“For never”.  
   
“For now”.  
   
Nik grumbled. “Ugh, I’d forgotten I was talking to the local hopeless romantic”.  
   
Damen eyed him warily for a second.  
   
“What?”, Nik asked, confused.  
   
“You wouldn’t have told me if you hadn’t gotten hammered at my house”, Damen complained.  
   
Nik crossed his arms defensively. “Erm-”, he started, but couldn’t say anything else.  
   
Damen was about to go on a rant about how _dared_ he not tell him anything before Nik pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You don’t get to complain, fucker, you didn’t tell me about Jokaste!”  
   
That made Damen shut his mouth immediately.  
   
*****  
   
Damen came back to their room late that night, and Laurent was already in his bed, lights turned off, his back to the door. He looked at his silhouette and sighed, feeling frustrated and angry and regretful and he hated when his heart ached for something but there were so many feelings he couldn’t tell what exactly he was aching for.  
   
Then he tucked himself into his bed, and the room was awfully silent.  
   
He realized, a minute later, that Laurent wasn’t asleep. He could tell immediately, because he recognized the patterns of his breathing.  
   
He felt like shit and he needed to scream into a pillow or he needed to fall asleep or he needed the football match to come _now_ so he could channelize all his energy and his might into it. He wanted to distract himself from the whole situation but it was still nagging at him, creeping into his every thought, his feeling. He needed to pour it all out, to say it. This was the same man who had sat next to him as he admitted what Kastor had done. He was the same man who had told him how he’d lost his family and how it had taken a toll on him. He trusted him now, he truly did, and he knew him enough to know he’d understand, even if he pretended not to, even if he chose to never speak to him again, he would still understand his motives, and that was all Damen needed.  
   
And so, he took his shot into the void.  
   
“I’m sorry, okay?”, he said into the silence, into the nothingness, into the everything. He shifted against the sheets. “I’m sorry I did what I did, but I need you to know I wasn’t doing it to defend you. You don’t need defending, I know that much, and trust me, I’ve lived first-hand accounts of your rage and fury, and I know you could have destroyed him. I didn’t do it as a vendetta for what he did to you. That’s between you and him and I have absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever”.  
   
He heard a flicker, a small movement, a shadow inching a millimeter. He carried on. He had so many things he had to say.  
   
He forced himself to carry on.  
   
“…But this man came back as if he was God almighty, as if he hadn’t been suspended for kicking someone else nearly into unconsciousness, and he prided on it, as if he wasn’t some piece of trash. And everybody received him as such, stared at him in awe, clapped him on the shoulders, as if he was some kind of hero to admire, because of what he did to _you_ ”.  
   
He swallowed and carried on.  
   
“And then he assumed the position of the captain once again, the fucking quarterback, as if all his actions had no consequences, and he was once again the giant brute he was used to be, as if nothing had changed, as if it meant nothing, everything he did to _you_ ”.  
   
He was certain Laurent had taken the hint of what Damen knew by then, of the information which had turned into a catalyst and spurred him into action. He carried on.  
   
“And the way he talked about you, Laurent, as if you were just another idiot standing in his way, as if he could use you and throw you and kick you and the world wouldn’t stop turning on itself. I couldn’t help it. He shouldn’t talk in that way about anyone, but about _you_ of all people? I wasn’t defending you, I was only making him realize that there are consequences to his actions, and in that moment I couldn’t care less about the consequences to my actions”, _because he’d tried to rape you and whatever I’d do to him wouldn’t be enough of a punishment,_ he didn’t say.  
   
He sighed.  
   
“Anyway…”, he said lowly. “You’ll surely be glad to know that I’m off the team now. My last match is tomorrow night, and then I’m gone. Don’t worry, I’ve been punished, too, for my actions”, he hesitated for a moment before he continued, “please don’t punish me you as well. _That_ I can bear, but _this,_ I just…not after everything we lived, everything we said”.  
   
The environment turned gloom suddenly, as if someone had turned the lights off abruptly and taken every positive emotion with them. The light was replaced by a cold, gloomy darkness. And in the midst of that darkness: silence.  
   
Laurent didn’t reply.  
   
Damen didn’t expect him to, anyway.  
   
He supposed he would have to learn to live with it.  
   
He closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. A minute went by, then another.  
   
Then he gave up.  
   
“Goodnight”, he said, turning on his side, his back against Laurent.  
   
******  
   
The next morning, when Damen woke up after a series of tumultuous dreams in which Laurent’s presence was always a given and where he didn’t tell the different between dream and reality, for they both were quite similar in the urging feeling of hopelessness around him. He looked around in a rush, aching for something, _anything_ that might shed him light on Laurent and on where they were standing now, but then he realized, with a pang, that Laurent was gone, his bed carefully made and his side of the room completely tidy. Damen leaned back against the pillows with a sigh, feeling tired and weary, carrying the heavy load of too much exertion and too little sleep.  
   
But he couldn’t focus on that at the moment. He couldn’t.  
   
He had a match to win.  
   
And of course it would be like that. He couldn’t leave with anything less. It would be his way of saying goodbye. He had to ace it.  
   
He focused on the match for the rest of the day, tactics and impressions and studies of the rivals taking so much space in his mind that there was hardly any place for him to think about Laurent, and that worked perfectly fine for him.  
   
By the time the match came, he was _so_ ready.  
   
The match started. He felt on fire. He poured his frustration his anger and all of his feelings into his movements, into his decisions. His brain was working a hundred miles an hour, planning attacks, figures of defense, strategies to reach a touchdown. He didn’t stop, couldn’t be stopped, because while one side of his brain worked into strategies and made decisions, the other side of his brain kept telling him to _never_ stop because he needed this, god, he needed the catharsis that it provided. He needed to leave Laurent and his stupid, silly crush behind, and he needed to look at Kastor in the eye and not feel the aching pain and guilt consuming him, and he needed to look a Jokaste and not feel vulnerable and stupid and since he couldn’t, he could have _this much,_ one last victory, one last goodbye, a farewell for his teammates and for the demons crowding his mind.  
   
The last minute.  
   
He scored.  
   
His team won.  
   
He stopped with a smile, drowning in the cheers of the crowd and the loudness of his breathing. Only then, did his muscles start to feel sore.  
   
But he didn’t care, because a second later, the whole team was hugging him and clapping him in the shoulder and Nik smiled at him and shook his head, as if telling him _of course you would do this, of course you would._  
  
He laughed and shook his head, and everything else was just a distant memory he couldn’t care about at the moment. He took off his helmet and looked around and there, with smiles and cheers, and blinded by the intense lights coming from the stadium and the pain in his muscles and his heart beating fast and faster and faster, Damen felt very much _alive._  
  
It was a bittersweet victory, of course, the feeling wouldn’t last long and in very little time all the ghosts would come back to haunt him.  
   
But he could have this for now. He deserved it.  
   
It didn’t come as a surprise to find out he’d been chosen the MVP of the match and he turned to look at their coach, who was looking at Damen with a kind of nostalgic face. The crowd was leaving and the guys chose to celebrate as soon as they were out of their armor. Nik was walking along him out of the field, laughing and shaking his head, Erasmus and Pallas arriving a second later, clapping him and congratulating him and-  
   
“Damianos”, a voice behind him said.  
   
He stopped dead in his tracks. So did his friends, a couple of seconds later.  
   
Oh, he recognized that voice.  
   
He turned slowly.  
   
Laurent was walking down the last couple of stairs from the bleachers, his eyes fixed on Damen.  
   
From the bleachers.  
   
Damen’s mount opened.  
   
A couple of seconds later, Laurent caught up to him and his friends. He stopped there, dead still. Damen couldn’t take his eyes off him.  
   
“Good game”, Laurent started.  
   
Damen’s face widened in a smile. Laurent had been there. Laurent had seen the match. He’d heard what he’d said the night before and he’d come and _seen_ him play. His heart was threatening to burst with how hard and how fast it was beating.  
   
“Laurent”, was all he managed to say, a little out of breath.  
   
“He means ‘thank you for coming’”, Nik said, from behind him.  
   
Laurent moved a little bit to look at Nikandros and rose an eyebrow. “Woah, you could figure that out by yourself? bravo”, he said sarcastically.  
   
Nik sighed, “I hate him”, he told Damen. Laurent rolled his eyes.  
   
Damen was still speechless.  
   
There were a thousand things he wanted to say but he couldn’t, because his brain kept screaming at him that _Laurent had come to see him._  
  
“Can we talk?”, Laurent started, “in private”, he said a little louder, clearly intended for Nikandros.  
   
Damen smiled. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Of course”, he said, his voice soft, so soft that anyone else would have doubted it had come from the MVP of the match. He scratched the back of his head, Laurent still looking at him expectantly. “Give me five minutes, I’ll take this off and I’ll meet you here, okay?”  
   
Laurent bit his lip and nodded.  
   
Damen took off running towards the changing rooms.  
   
Laurent smiled, seeing Damen’s eagerness.  
   
Nik, Erasmus and Pallas were still fixed to the spot. Nik looked at Damen’s retreating figure and turned back to Laurent, “he’ll be back soon”, Nik said, awkwardly.  
   
“Yes, he just told me that”.  
   
Nik exhaled loudly, clearly exhausted. “I’ll go change too. Bye, serpent”.  
   
“Goodbye, giant brute number two. Goodbye Pallas and Erasmus”.  
   
Pallas and Erasmus smiled and waved goodbye, Nik elbowing them while they accompanied him to the changing rooms as they kept laughing at Laurent’s nickname for Nik.  
   
When Nik arrived to the rooms, Damen was already tying his shoes, as fast as he could. Nik laughed.  
   
Damen stood up. “Nik, he came to see me play”, was all he said, a wide smile on his face.  
   
“Yes, he made that quite clear”.  
   
“I feel like I’m going to pass out, or throw up”.  
   
“Don’t. That would probably get him to stop talking to you altogether”.  
   
“I’ll see you at the pub so we’ll celebrate?”  
   
“Yes, but get ready because you’ll have to give me all the details”.  
   
Damen shook his curls and sighed. “Wish me luck”.  
   
Nik smiled. “Go get him”, he told him excitedly as Damen walked away.


	20. Chapter 20

  
“Hey”.  
   
“Hey”, Laurent replied, “that didn’t take you long”.  
   
“I rushed”.  
   
“I can see”.  
   
Damen felt slightly awkward and looked down to the ground. Laurent cleared his throat. “I brought you some coffee”, he said, handing the cup out to Damen, who stared at it in awe, “I don’t know what you’re supposed to get someone after a match, and I assume coffee is definitely not in the list, but I know you like coffee, so…”, he looked uncomfortable saying those words.  
   
Damen took it with a smile and smelled it. “Hmmm”, he said with a smile, “coffee is perfect”.  
   
Laurent nodded and started walking, Damen looking up from his cup and rushing to catch up with him.  
   
“You came to the match”, Damen said, still in disbelief.  
   
Laurent sighed, “I’m really, _really_ trying to not insult your intelligence at the moment, but you are leaving me no choice, considering that you keep repeating the obvious over and over”, he replied exasperatedly.  
   
Damen laughed. “Sorry, sorry”, he said raising his hands in the air, placatingly. “Thank you for coming”.  
   
Laurent shrugged. “You’re welcome, I suppose”.  
   
“Was I good?”  
   
“Do you mean, were you a giant, force ridden man who scared anyone and everything around them into victory? Of course”.  
   
Damen smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment”.  
   
“You clearly don’t receive many, then”.  
   
“Not from you”.  
   
Laurent looked down and drank from his cup.  
   
Damen was at a loss about what to say, feeling the awkwardness of the moment, but also the _something_ else in there, something he couldn’t decipher, he couldn’t understand, but that he knew for sure was clearly in the air around them.  
   
Laurent, his eyes still fixed on the cup, was the first one to break the silence, surprisingly. “Damen”, he started, but stopped.  
   
“Hmm?”, Damen asked, blowing the cup of coffee because it was still too hot to drink, and also because he desperately needed something else to do with his mouth before he fucked up again.  
   
“We’re okay”, Laurent replied.  
   
Damen stopped and turned to look at him. “We are?”, he asked hopefully.  
   
“We are”.  
   
Damen smiled and kept walking. “Good”.  
   
Laurent sighed. “Remember what you told me, that night in your living room?”  
   
“That I wanted us to be friends”.  
   
“I’d like to try that”.  
   
Damen’s smile widened. “Very good. I’d like that too”.  
   
Laurent kept walking and he didn’t say anything else.  
   
“I wish I would have seen you in the bleaches, being forced to be around people, watching something you don’t care about, it would have been fun”, he said, because he didn’t dare to say that he wished he could have seen his eyes fixed on him and his hair shining, coming from the intense lights of the field.  
   
“I would have distracted you”.  
   
“You think too highly of yourself, DeVere”, Damen replied.  
   
“Or maybe I know you well enough, Damianos”.  
   
Damen smiled. “Hm, I doubt it”.  
   
“I know you well enough to know that your attention span is not good and that you seeing me in the bleaches would have ruined every chance for a victory”.  
   
Damen wanted to refute that, but he knew deep inside that Laurent had a point.  
   
So he simply drank from his cup and stared at Laurent, who smiled and walked towards him, reaching out without thinking and cleaning the foam from the milk from Damen’s upper lip.  
   
Damen stopped dead in his tracks, enjoying the soft, intoxicating feeling of Laurent’s fingers so close to his mouth. God, he wanted to drown in that feeling, he wanted to get lost in that feeling, he wanted to close the distance and taste the coffee from his lips. The impulse to remain still and not to close the proximity between them was more exhausting that the whole football match.  
   
“There, that’s better, now you don’t look like an idiot”, Laurent said, walking once again, “well, not more than usual”.  
   
Damen touched the spot where Laurent’s fingers had been and walked with him once again.  
   
“I really am sorry”, he said, encouraged by Laurent’s good mood.  
   
Laurent shrugged. “I understand”.  
   
“Thank you”, Damen started, “for understanding”.  
   
“I’m a smart person”, Laurent replied.  
   
“He tried to rape you”, Damen blurted, out of nowhere. He couldn’t not to. He couldn’t pretend like nothing had happened, like they both didn’t know that.  
   
Laurent’s face remained impassive. “I told you. He caught me off guard”.  
   
Damen stood still at the confirmation of that. They were passing by a couple of chairs and tables kept in the middle of the grass. He felt the urge to sit and he did immediately, closing his eyes and breathing deeply against the feeling of rage that was threatening to consume him.  
   
A second later, he heard Laurent sitting in front of him.    
   
“He’d said a couple of things before and I could tell by the way he looked at me that he wanted to fuck me, but I did not expect him to attempt to do so in such a… forceful way”.  
   
Damen swallowed against the fury.  
   
“After the match, he came looking for me, he found me in front of the library, said he’d walk me to my room, I refused, kept talking, I kept refusing, then he started insulting me, then he pushed me against the wall. I used my sharp tongue and got myself out of the situation”, he said, his hand coming to his stomach unconsciously, “not without a couple of bruises, though”.  
   
His face remained impassive.  
   
Damen squeezed his eyes shut. “Jesus”, he whispered, “Laurent”.  
   
Laurent was looking completely unaffected.  
   
“I should have killed him”, Damen said.  
   
“I told you-”, Laurent started.  
   
“I know! But, how dare he? How could he do that to you?”  
   
Laurent shrugged. “I suppose it’s his only way to get someone to lick his cock”.  
   
Damen sighed. “Don’t”.  
   
Laurent stopped talking. “So now you know why. And you know I won’t let that happen again. He won’t catch me off guard again”.  
   
“I know he won’t. If someone can destroy anyone, it’s you”.  
   
Laurent smiled. “This coming from the man who weighs 300 pounds”, he said at ease.  
   
Damen smiled back. “I don’t weigh 300 pounds”, he replied defensively.  
   
“You look like you do”.  
   
“Checking me out a lot, are you?”, Damen said smugly.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes, “there’s literally no other view because you’re blocking everything beyond you”.  
   
They spent the rest of their time talking amiably. The truth of what had happened, what Laurent had almost lived, was a presence in between them, but instead of pulling them apart, it was binding them together somehow.  
   
When the coffee was gone and when time couldn’t stretch no longer despite Damen’s multiple attempts at avoiding the unavoidable, they had nothing left to do but stare at each other, the conversation naturally coming to an end. “I-”, he started but he wasn’t able to finish. He didn’t have the words to express that deep, urging need to drag the seconds forever, to stretch them up until the place where they no longer were units of time.  
   
So Laurent took the word from him and turned seconds into a fleeting unit of time. “You should go”, he said, determinedly.  
   
Damen scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, I was meant to go and celebrate so…”  
   
“I apologize for taking some time from your drinking-fueled orgy”.  
   
Damen laughed, “jealous?”, he asked teasingly, “because you can come with me, if you want to”, he said, uncertain of where he was standing with Laurent, but trying to avoid the feeling of hope churning on his stomach.  
   
Laurent seemed to consider it for a couple of seconds before replying, “no”, he said simply, with a grimace.  
   
Damen couldn’t contain his laughter and he bent, as Laurent smiled back. “Had to give it a try”, he said with a shrug.  
   
Laurent smiled and bit his lip. For a moment, they just stared at one another silently, Damen aching to close the distance between them, to be closer, and closer, and closer.  
   
Last time he’d felt that impulse, he had the alcohol to blame for that. This time, he had nothing but the rush of adrenaline and a bit of caffeine running through his veins to account for it.  
   
 _Ask me to stay,_ Damen thought, irrationally. _I will say yes, but I need you to say it. I will stay, Laurent. Ask me to stay, ask me to kiss you, ask me to touch your face once again. I will. Anything you ask from me, I will._  
   
“Goodbye, Damen”, Laurent said, instead.  
   
Damen closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. He clenched his hands into fists, frustratedly.  
   
When he opened them again, Laurent was smiling at him, as if he was clearly enjoying Damen’s reaction.  
   
“I’ll see you later, Laurent”.  
   
“Yes, sadly”.  
   
“I hate you”.  
   
“The feeling is mutual”.  
   
*****  
   
By the time he arrived to the party, he just wanted to collapse against a chair and fall asleep, the exertion from the day catching up to him, and making him realize that this was the last time he would ever feel _this._ And he left with a bang, but still, he _left._  
  
And it wasn’t easy when everybody received him with cheers and claps on his shoulders, when everything he wanted to do was to go back to their room, back to Laurent, but he couldn’t, not yet.  
   
By the time he finally managed to slip through the crowd, he slumped over a couch. Then he realized that Nik was sitting next to him, sipping vodka. Damen turned to look at him and frowned. “What the hell happened to you, man?”  
   
Nik swallowed and pointed towards the dancefloor, where Jord and Aimeric were dancing closely and laughing. Damen hissed. “Yeap”, Nik said, looking like shit.  
   
“Fuck”, Damen whispered. “I’m sorry, Nik”.  
   
Nik shrugged. “Not much else to do, is there?”  
   
“Drive ourselves to unconsciousness?”  
   
Nik nodded. “Sounds like a plan”.  
   
Damen smiled and went to serve themselves some alcohol. In that sense, he felt thankful that Laurent wasn’t there, because he would have done that, he would have, and Damen was certain he would have ended up with Torveld or something and Damen wouldn’t have been able to handle it, because they were _so fucking close,_ or was it all in his mind? Was he just romanticizing everything that was happening between them? Was he completely wrong? Was Laurent doing all of this just to get back at him? This uncertainty was driving him crazy.  
   
Nik and him spent the whole night talking, growing dizzier and dizzier with the passing of time. Every now and then, Nik would turn and look at them and his whole face would transform into a grimace which conveyed pain, and Damen had never seen him like this. So he tried to swallow his own feelings for Laurent and just be there for Nik, in any way he could.  
   
At some point, a girl asked him to dance, and from an objective point of view, she was beautiful. Damen refused. He wasn’t interested. He was flattered, but not interested at all.  
   
Jord came by them once during the night, Nik immediately sitting up straight and smiling at him, managing to look sober and charming without even attempting to. Jord joked with Nik for a while and asked Damen about Laurent, and then Aimeric was back, and Jord stood up and waved them off and left.  
   
As soon as he did, Nik covered his face with his hands. Damen smiled and put an arm around him.  
   
“What the fuck is wrong with me?”, Nik asked.  
   
Damen rubbed his back. “You’re feeling little butterflies in your stomach?”  
   
Nik nodded with a groan. “But then he’s gone and they turn into stones and I want him to talk to me again”.  
   
Damen smiled. “It will happen”, he said, with certainty.  
   
Nik shook his head. “He looks happy”.  
   
Damen had to admit that much.  
   
****  
   
Pallas and Erasmus had to drag them back into their rooms.  
   
They knocked first on Damen and Laurent’s room. Laurent opened it with a sigh, his arms crossed. “Hey!”, Damen seemed to wake up and cheer up when he saw him.  
   
“Why did you let him drink that much?”, Laurent asked, seriously.  
   
Pallas and Erasmus shook their heads and pointed at Nik.  
   
Nik shrugged, still slumped against Erasmus.  
   
Laurent opened his door wider and turned his back on them, walking inside the room. Erasmus and Pallas dragged Damen with them and threw him over his bed.  
   
Laurent rose an eyebrow. “What are you still doing here?”, he said, “you’re useless, get out of here”.  
   
Pallas frowned. “Lovely person, aren’t you?”, he said as they walked out, dragging Nik with them.  
   
Damen was trying to place himself over the bed without success, his elbows giving in before he even managed to sit up. Laurent closed the door behind them and walked towards Damen, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Why do you always do this, you idiot?”  
   
Damen was struggling to keep his eyes open. “Do what?”, he asked.  
   
“Drink yourself to oblivion”.  
   
“Oh”, Damen said, the voice cut off by a hiccup. “Don’t know”, he replied, his voice coming slurred, “I suppose I just want to forget”.  
   
“Forget about what?”  
   
“You”, Damen replied, looking straight into his eyes.  
   
Laurent sighed and rolled his eyes. “So dramatic”.  
   
“Hmm”, Damen started, sleepily, “I also want to forget about him, you know?”  
   
“Who?”  
   
“My brother, and _his girlfriend_ ”, he said, with a grimace.  
   
“You miss him”.  
   
“Every single fucking day”, and suddenly his voice was bitter, swallowing against the pain and the rage and the utter regret washing over him.  
   
Laurent nodded. “I miss him too”, he replied into the silence, “still, it’s not an excuse to drink until I can’t get up”.  
   
“But you drive everyone away”, Damen replied, sounding really drunk, really logical, at the same time. “We all have our demons, don’t we?”  
   
Laurent grew silent. Damen was right.  
   
There was nothing else to say.  
   
Damen was falling asleep.  Laurent simply stared at him.  
   
“What about his girlfriend? Do you miss her too?”  
   
Damen frowned, as if he had no idea what Laurent was talking about. “Who?”, he asked.  
   
Laurent looked down and then he looked up, taking a deep breath. “Wasn’t she your girlfriend?”  
   
Damen kept frowning, as if his brain was having trouble connecting the dots. “Ah, Jokaste?”  
   
“Do you still love her?”, Laurent asked quietly.  
   
Damen struggled for a moment, looking contemplatively to the horizon. “No”, he blurted out of nowhere, then he turned and stared at Laurent silently, his blinking taking longer than expected. “Not anymore”.  
   
Laurent stared back and nodded slowly.  
   
Damen leaned against the bed and Laurent stood up, feeling him stir beside him. “Hm”, he said, lowly, “Laurent?”, he asked, slurred.  
   
“Yes?”  
   
“Stay with me”, Damen replied, sleepily.  
   
“Do I have any other choice?”, he said, sitting next to him once again, just for a couple of minutes.  
   
Damen smiled. A second later, his eyes opened and as soon as he fixed his eyes on Laurent’s face through the haze of his drunkenness, his smile grew wider, a small glint in his gaze.  
   
Laurent had inched a little closer, he’d realize later, because Damen was able to extend his hand and touch Laurent’s cheekbone in the same way he’d had during New Years’ Eve. Laurent stood still, transfixed, his eyes fixed on Damen, unable to look anywhere else. He could _feel_ the intent behind it, the magnet pulling them towards one another.  
   
It couldn’t be like this.  
   
Not when Damen wasn’t aware of where he was and who he was with. With that level of inebriation, he could be kissing anyone, especially Laurent. He closed his eyes and covered Damen’s hand with his, not pulling it apart, but absorbing the soft and rough feeling of his skin. Laurent forced himself to believe Damen wanted this with _him_ of all people, but he knew it was a far-fetched possibility.  
   
“Stay with me”, Damen whispered once again.  
   
Laurent nodded, his eyes still closed, his hand still covering Damen’s.  
   
He wanted to stay like that all night.  
   
He couldn’t.  
   
There was just a little something he allowed himself to do, just this once, just this time. A second later, he turned his face and placed a soft kiss on Damen’s palm, leaving his lips there, marveling on the warmth and the closeness and the intimacy of the moment.  
   
When he finally dared to open his eyes and work through the drumming beat of his heart, he realized Damen was looking at him, his mouth opened, his eyes smiling on their own, without even intending to. Laurent smiled back, he couldn’t not to. It didn’t feel as if time had dragged on forever, as if seconds had turned into eternity, it felt as if time itself had stopped, as if they were defying the very rules of time and space by standing there, their gazes fixed on each other.  
   
A moment later, Damen withdrew his hand, Laurent feeling the cold claiming him back once again. Without taking his eyes off him, Damen took his own hand towards his lips and kissed the spot where Laurent’s lips had been mere seconds before. Laurent dragged a deep breath, feeling a strange rush of adrenaline coursing through him. Damen opened his eyes and smiled widely at him, staring deeply through bleary eyes. Laurent bit his lip and smiled at him, because he couldn’t help it, and he _hated_ that.  
   
Then, Damen’s eyes closed, his lips still forming that annoyingly perfect smile.  
   
Laurent shook his head and touched his own cheek, his mind reliving that moment over and over and over. He didn’t care. He would care for it tomorrow. But he had tonight, and he had that memory to keep his heart running and his blood rushing.  
   
He fell asleep with a wide smile on his face.  
   
He hated it.  
   
He loved it.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry for taking so long to update this little one. Life has been a little hectic lately and it left me no time at all to keep writing, but worry not: I will never abandon this fic and now, after a couple of very crazy weeks, I'm finding the time to keep writing. Thank you so much for your patience and I hope you enjoy this chapter! x

“Ouch”, was the first thing that Damen uttered the next morning.

Everything ached. His back was sore, his neck was sore, his head was killing him and he hadn’t even attempted to get out of bed yet.

He heard a distant chuckle on the other side of the room.

He opened his eyes.

His vision swam.

He groaned. “Ugh I’m going to die”, he whispered, his voice raspy.

He sat up with great effort and he turned to look at Laurent, who was still laying on his bed.

“Morning” was all Laurent said, his eyes fixed on a book.

“The curtains are shut”, Damen whispered, taking in his surroundings. “You weren’t planning to kill me today”.

Laurent smiled through his reading. “It would be too much effort”.

Damen frowned. “You’re still in bed. Are you okay?”

“You drank enough for a lifetime and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”

“You never stay in bed”.

Laurent shrugged. “Guess I wanted to be lazy. It is getting boring, though”.

Damen smiled. He then straightened his back and groaned. “Ugh. So I drank enough for a lifetime, then?”, he asked.

Laurent sat up. “You don’t remember?”

Damen shook his head. “It’s all kind of a blur. I remember arriving to the pub and…that’s pretty much it”.

Laurent nodded and turned back to his book. “Okay”, he said lowly.

Damen looked at him in awe. “Are you okay?”, he asked once again.

“Yeap”, was all Laurent said, before standing up in his pjs and walking towards the bathroom to shower.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure”.

And this time, in a hesitant voice, “Laurent?”

Laurent turned to look at him before opening the door to the bathroom. “Hm?”

“Are we okay?”

“We are”.

*******

After showering and getting some breakfast, Damen felt slightly better, so he arrived back to their room with his mood lightened. Laurent was still reading his book, his bed neatly made and his appearance as pristine as ever. He sat on the edge of his bed. Laurent lowered his book and stared at him questioningly.

“Let’s grab coffee”, Damen said.

“I’m busy”, Laurent replied.

“Please?”, Damen asked, “my treat? I really need to talk to you”.

Laurent studied him carefully for a moment before sighing, with a roll of his eyes. “Fine”.

Damen smiled widely and offered his hand to help him stand up. Laurent batted it away with a slap of his hand and stood up by himself, Damen laughing and looking quite at ease next to him.

A couple of minutes later, they were sitting in a bench, staring at the trees around them. It was a cold afternoon, Laurent rubbing his arms through his cardigan discreetly so Damen wouldn’t notice he was cold, but Damen did, of course, and he took his football jacket off and put it over Laurent’s shoulders. Laurent stared at him. “Seriously?”

Damen shrugged. “You were cold”.

Laurent rolled his eyes. “This weighs like 20 pounds, it’s gigantic”.

“It’ll keep you warm”.

“You’re getting awfully good at reading me”, Laurent admitted, muttering under his breath.

Damen smiled and moved an inch closer towards him, wanting to feel the warmth of Laurent.

“I wanted to talk to you”, Damen said, after taking a sip of his coffee.

Laurent didn’t look at him. “Yes, you have made that abundantly clear. What about?”, he asked, fidgeting with the hem of the jacket unconsciously, Damen smiling at how adorable that looked on him.

Damen dragged a deep breath. He should just say it and then it wouldn’t just be a weird idea floating around in his head. He’d say it. He did. He clenched his hands into fists and forced himself to say it. “I want to sell my parent’s house”, he blurted.

Laurent stopped fidgeting with the jacket. “Oh”, he said, and then he looked up and stared at Damen, confusion written on his face, or not really, he knew perfectly well how to disguise it, but Damen knew him well enough at this point to know. He smiled and bit his lip. He was nervous, he felt nervous telling Laurent this, because it made it real, not just some construction in his head.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re right. It is not my home anymore, now it’s just the place to store everything that’s keeping me from being the person I want to be. All my demons, except for you”, he said jokingly, nudging Laurent with his shoulder, “are there, and it’s time to say goodbye. This is not how I want to remember my parents. So I think the best thing I could do is just to leave it all behind”.

Laurent nodded. “Good”.

“I thought it could help me, you know? Pay off college and organize my life better, I- I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and I think it’s what my parents would have liked us to do”.

“It is a good idea. I’m surprised it came from you”.

Damen, who had been feeling awkward and nervous and uncertain, cracked in laughter, because Laurent always knew what to say. He knew Damen was feeling like this, and he knew this would set a better mood. “Well, you were the one who planted the idea in my head in the first place so…”

Laurent smiled and nudged him back.

Damen looked down and sighed. “There’s just one problem, though”, he started.

“What?”

“The house is mine and Kastor’s. And I know him, as soon as I mention how much money it represents, he’ll say yes. The problem is… I’ll have to go and talk to him”, Damen sighed, “and I don’t feel ready for that, but at the same time I am, you know? I think it’s time to move on”.

He grew silent and kept his gaze down. “I- I… I don’t know”, he said quietly.

“Want me to come with you?”, Laurent said, out of nowhere.

Damen turned to look at him with a frown, certainly not expecting that.

And by the look on Laurent’s face, he hadn’t expected to say that either. He looked horrified.

“What?”, Damen asked.

“What”, Laurent replied.

“Are you serious?”

Laurent shrugged. “Sure. I mean, if you’d like me to come with you, I, erm-”, he swallowed, “I suppose I could do that”.

Damen was silent for a long while. It was very silent around them. Laurent ignored the silence and simply focused on drinking from his cup. He looked perfectly at ease with himself, as if he hadn’t just said what he’d said.

“I would love that”, Damen replied, quietly.

“Good”, Laurent said calmly.

“Do you want us to go today or…?”, Damen started.

“No, you stink of alcohol and I have plans with Nicaise later today, but tomorrow would be fine”.

“I”, Damen started just as Laurent was about to get up, “thank you”.

“Are you sure going to your brother’s house with your worst enemy is a good idea, though?”, Laurent asked.

“It is not”, Damen replied. “But…”

“But?”

“But you’re not my worst enemy”.

“What am I, then?”

Everything.

“You’re… you’re so much more”.

Laurent smiled. “I’m taking this, by the way. Good luck freezing to death in this cold”, he said, walking away.

Damen smiled back, biting his lip. A second later, without the rush of adrenaline and nerves, he realized he was in a tight white t-shirt and nothing else, and that Laurent was 100 percent right: he was freezing from head to toe.

Damn Laurent.

*******

Sleep eluded him the whole night. With every ticking second, he felt like a deadline was closing in on him, oppressing him, cornering him, leaving him no choice to run, nowhere to go. He had to face him, he just had to.

But it was so difficult. So difficult when he didn’t know if he hated him or if he loved him, when he still felt the acute, sharp pain of betrayal, when with a snap of his fingers he’d lost the only family he had left.

“Shut up”, he heard from the other side of the room.

“What?”, he asked in confusion, wondering if Laurent was sleep-talking.

“Shut up, I can hear your thoughts from here”.

“I can’t quiet them down”, he admitted, sounding worried.

“It will all be fine, Damen, he’s your brother”.

“I don’t know, Laurent. I’m fucking terrified”.

“You can do this”.

“I’m not quite certain I can”.

“Neither am I, but I’ll be there, and I can do anything, so it will be alright”, Laurent replied calmly.

Damen couldn’t help but crack in laughter. Laurent was unbelievable, but he knew exactly what to say and when to say it…not always, but whenever he chose not to be a bitch about it.

And maybe he’d just saved Damen that night.

******

“I can’t do this”.

“Yes you can”.

“Nope”.

“Shut up and get out of the goddamn car!”, Laurent said, exasperatedly.

They had just parked in front of Jokaste’s flat.

Damen knew it perfectly. Down to the last corner of it. And at the moment, the only thoughts invading his mind were of the best experiences they’d lived there, together. Their first kiss in front of that very door, the first morning he cooked her breakfast, the nights during the weekends when they would cuddle and fall asleep watching an old rom-com. Those memories seemed closer than they actually were.

He dragged a deep breath.

They were in Damen’s car. Damen hadn’t slept at all the night before and had tried to convince Laurent not to go, but Laurent didn’t quell and almost dragged him towards the car.

Damen was nervous.

Laurent stepped out and opened Damen’s door for him to get out. Damen simply stared at him, horror and fear written on his face.

“Come on”, Laurent said, firmly.

Damen sighed and finally got out of the car. He knew he had to do this, he had to. He knew he would feel that, but the feeling was blinding, intense, overreaching and covering every single part of his body and turning it into rage and anxiety and guilt and blame and self-hate.

He stepped in front of the doorbell.

He would see her again. And her blonde hair and her blueish green eyes and that smile which seemed so genuine yet which managed to hide a thousand thoughts cramming underneath.

The door opened.

Kastor was standing in front of them.

Damen couldn’t speak. Couldn’t say anything. Because he wanted to punch his brother and he wanted to hug his brother and he wanted to yell at him and he wanted to demand answers and he was doing anything within his reach to stop himself from raising his hand because he had no idea if a fist or a hug would come out of it, so he swallowed against the rage and the pain and he sort of swallowed against all the memories they’d collected together, and pretended to move on, forced himself to speak out, to say something, anything.

No voice came out.

He felt Laurent’s eyes on him.

Kastor reacted, his back straightening immediately, surprise written in his eyes. He tried to conceal it, but he didn’t manage to do it on time, and Laurent noticed, he certainly did.

And so, Laurent took Damen’s word.

“Kastor, I assume”, he stared, “if your gigantic shape is anything to go by”.

“Who the fuck are you?”, Kastor asked.

Laurent was about to reply when Damen managed to cut him off. “Hello, brother”, he said, his voice shaky and lacking its usual confidence and pride.

“Long time no see, bro”, Kastor replied, looking uncomfortable.

“May we come in?”

Kastor looked around the living room, his flight mode clearly activated. He sighed and nodded, opening the door wider and leaving Damen and Laurent to walk behind him.

Damen walked in and stopped dead in his tracks.

The memories hit him like a hurricane, with a sudden, unstoppable force.

Jokaste was everywhere.

The smell the touch the view the taste the sounds. Everything around him reminded him of something that had happened there. He clenched his hands into fists and dragged a deep breath slowly.

And then a force, unstoppable, unbidden. The force of a lightning strike.

He felt Laurent’s hand wrapping around his. Damen opened his eyes widely and stared at their joined hands, and immediately willed it to relax. It did eventually, under Laurent’s touch. He looked up and saw Laurent nodding at him encouragingly.  
  
He walked towards the couch, Laurent never letting go of his hand.

Kastor noticed and his eyes widened, Damen felt a certain kind of thrill running through his veins. Kastor was expecting to see Damen broken and battered and bruised, but at the moment, with Laurent’s hand in his, he was unstoppable.

“I need to talk to you”, he said as they sat on the couch, Laurent letting go of his hand immediately.

“Sure”, Kastor said with a shrug, “what’s up?”

He had to ask, he knew he just had to.

“Where’s”, he cleared his throat, “hm, where’s Jokaste?”

Kastor looked around calmly, “she’s taking a shower, I’m sure she’ll be out soon”.

Damen nodded.

“Who’s your friend?”, Kastor asked.

Laurent was sprawled against the couch, his legs crossed, an arm thrown over the back of the couch, managing to look perfectly at ease with himself at the moment, no sign of tension visible. Damen smiled, Laurent looked at him questioningly.

“That’s Laurent… a friend of mine”.

“Thought you might need backup for this visit?”, Kastor asked bitingly.

“Nope. He thought he’d need someone to see through bullshit. I’m an expert on that, and I’m sensing it everywhere”, Laurent replied sharply.

“Oh, sharp tongue, hasn’t he?”, Kastor said.

“A tongue which can do wonders”, Laurent said with a mischievous smile on his face, “as Damianos can vouch, I’m certain”.

Damen bit his lip. What the hell was Laurent doing?

Laurent smiled.

Kastor’s eyebrows shot up instantly.

Damen felt at an advantage there. He wasn’t sure how, but that had been a definite power move from Laurent, brilliant Laurent.

Kastor looked down and cleared his throat uncomfortably. “So, you’re here to show me you’ve gotten a new toy? It was about time, little brother”.

Damen sat up straight. “No. I don’t play your games, nor do I fall that low, I came on a different topic”.

“Let’s hear it, then. What do you want? Did you come here for an apology? Because you won’t get one”.

“No, I’m not looking for that. You would have to apologize for an entire lifetime and that would be too tiresome. I-”, he hesitated for a second, “I brought you a present”.

That took Kastor off guard.

“A Christmas present”, Damen said, reaching into his bag and taking out a little box wrapped in a bow. He heard Laurent sighing next to him, clearly not expecting that gesture either and feeling quite disappointed at it. When he looked at him, Laurent rolled his eyes.

Kastor took it and examined it carefully, before opening it. “Oh”, he said, as he saw what it was.

Damen nodded. “You’d left it at our parent’s house”.

It was a little slot machine they’d had when they were little kids. They loved playing on it, and Kastor always made Damen put in a quarter (the only kind of coin it accepted, according to him), which he always lost. They loved playing with it, a lot of memories built around that small toy.

Kastor looked up and nodded. “Thanks”.

“You’re welcome”, Damen replied, uncomfortably. “But that’s not what I came here for”.

“I assumed”.

“There’s something I need to tell you”.

“Spit it”, Kastor replied, crossing his arms defensively.

“Well, um-”, he swallowed. “Erm”, he moved awkwardly on the seat.

All the memories came back to him. All of those 4th of July they’d lived, the Christmas parties, Damen’s first birthday party he had memory of, hitting a football ball against a fence, the water gun fights during the summer, the small pool they’d built together whenever it was too hot, putting up the Christmas tree together, waking up the first day of the new year and rushing to their parents’ bedroom to watch a movie the four of them together… he was about to leave a whole lifetime behind. He knew that saying it to Kastor would change everything.

He dragged a deep breath.

“Hello, Damen”.

Oh, that voice slicing its way through every single one of his memories, through every single one of his fortresses, through every single one of his thoughts.

He blinked.

He remembered her voice in hushed tones, in loud tones, that voice laughing out loud, screaming his name, asking him to keep quiet, begging him for forgiveness.

He remembered her voice warm and beautiful and perfect. He remembered her voice regal, cold and detached.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

He heard her, rather than saw her, coming into the room. Her steps were just like everything else about her: determined, strong, unstoppable, a force like a hurricane, making herself known.

He heard a small intake of breath next to him, the only clear reaction coming from Laurent. Damen was certain no one else in the room had heard it.

“You look good”, she said, in a way which sounded both serious and slightly sarcastic.

He opened his eyes.

All the breath left his lungs.

Jokaste was right in front of him.

And he couldn’t think.

A second later, he was standing up, feeling dizzy. He knew he was having trouble breathing, he could feel it through his body. He needed air.

He needed air.

He walked out in a rush and ran out of the apartment.

It was all kind of blurry. Next thing he knew, he was tucking himself into his car. He dragged a deep breath.

He couldn’t wrap his mind around it, couldn’t understand, couldn’t believe.

But he knew what he’d seen, the second right after he’d seen her face for the very first time in seven months.

He was seeing it again, trying to understand.

Trying to understand the fact that Jokaste was pregnant.

 


	22. Chapter 22

“Damen”, he heard his voice through the turmoil of his mind. Then he heard a door opening and closing, and he turned to find Laurent searching his eyes questioningly. All his eyes met was blue. He blinked. He was captured by Laurent’s eyes. He swallowed. He dragged a deep breath.  
   
“I assume you didn’t know, then”, Laurent said.  
   
Know? How could he possibly know when he’d stopped talking to them seven months ago? How could he have known? He should have known. _Fuck._ He should have _known._  
  
And then he stopped dead on his tracks. His thoughts coming to an abrupt, horrible, intriguing question: was the baby _his_?  
   
“Oh my God”, he whispered.  
   
“You’ll have to ask her”, Laurent replied seriously.  
   
Damen closed his eyes and shook his head. He could feel the tears in the corner of his eyes. He squeezed them hard, not quite knowing whether he was trying to let them out or holding them still.  
   
“Damen, look at me”, he heard once again, closer this time.  
   
He opened his eyes and met blue.  
   
“She’s pregnant”, was all he could say, because that was the only thing he could think about. “Laurent, she’s _pregnant_ ”.  
   
“Yes, she is, apparently”.  
   
“What if it’s mine?”  
   
“Then it’s yours”.  
   
Damen swallowed against the fear crowding him, blinding him, invading him. He clenched his hands into fists.  
   
A second later, he felt once again the warmth of a hand wrapping around his fist. He looked up and found Laurent studying him carefully, seriously. Damen moved his head just slightly closer, his forehead nearly touching his. “What should I do, Laurent?”, he asked in a whisper, his voice still managing to sound shaky.  
   
Laurent stared deep into his eyes. “You face them”, he said, as quietly as Damen’s voice had been, but more firmly.  
   
Damen kept staring at him. His breathing was rushed, but somehow, amidst the warmth and the intimacy of Laurent’s touch, he couldn’t figure out if it was the shock or the feeling of Laurent’s hand against his. “I fucking _hate_ this”, he said angrily. “It’s as if they feel this is a battle they have to win, as if somehow I turned into the enemy, when all I’ve done has been loathing myself for what _they_ did to me and-”, great, he was crying now.  
   
Fucking fantastic.  
   
He bit his lip and allowed them to come down. Just a couple. Just until he could find his voice again.  
   
A soft touch against his cheek, Laurent wiping his tears away. Damen stared at him, transfixed. Laurent hadn’t moved his other hand from Damen’s. He wished he could store this moment in his brain and be able relate it to something other that this hideous feeling of utter betrayal in the future.  
   
Damen closed the space between them and their foreheads came together. He allowed another tear to slip by. Then another.  
   
“And now, she’s pregnant and-”, he broke down.  
   
“Shhh”, Laurent said quietly. “I know”.  
   
“How can I face them?”  
   
“We will”.  
   
Damen stared into those blue eyes. He wanted to merge, to drown, to get lost in them. He wanted to close the last inches keeping them apart, but he knew this wasn’t like that. This was Laurent offering comfort, perfect, wonderful Laurent.  
   
Laurent stared back at him and nodded minutely, a comforting flicker that Damen felt against his forehead, so so soft, but strong enough to give him a small piece of braveness back. “Stay with me”, he whispered, broken, lost, needy, slightly familiar in some corner of his brain, like a strange sort of déja-vú.  
   
Laurent smiled softly. “Do I have any other choice?”, he said calmly.  
   
The feeling of déja-vú came back, strong, stronger.  
   
Damen unclenched his other hand and softly touched Laurent’s lower lip, wanting to trace the silhouette of that smile. Soft. So soft.  
   
Laurent met his eyes again. Damen’s fingertips were still there, by Laurent’s lip.  
   
He heard, rather than saw, Laurent’s shaky intake of breath and a second later, he felt him pushing away. The warmth and the comfort and that odd feeling of _home_ were gone.  
   
Damen closed his eyes. He wanted to take back time. He wanted to remember this day for _this_ moment, rather than for the previous mess, or the mess which was about to unfold. He dared to do one last thing, though, because he needed it, now more than ever.  
   
He leaned in and placed a kiss in Laurent’s forehead.  
   
He saw Laurent’s eyes closing. He lingered there. “Thank you for doing this”, he whispered against Laurent’s skin.  
   
He pulled apart.  
   
Laurent swallowed and nodded. “Yes. Come”, he said, opening the door to his side of the car and walking out.  
   
Damen could do nothing but follow.  
   
******  
   
“I wasn’t expecting such a warm welcome”, Damen replied calmly as he walked into Jokaste’s flat once again, Laurent next to him. He aimed for nonchalance, even though he felt everything but. However, seeing Laurent next to him, the regality, the composure, the posture, the cool air around him, even though mere minutes ago he’d been the softest human being possible -and yet capable of killing Damen with his bare hands if he ever mentioned it-, had managed to give Damen all the confidence he could possibly need.  
   
“I wasn’t expecting that my first sight of you after seven months would be that of you panicking and running away”, Jokaste replied calmly.  
   
“That was certainly what you were aiming for, though”, Damen said, because he knew her enough to know that.  
   
She didn’t reply to that, opting instead to say, “wasn’t expecting you to bring company, either”, her eyes immediately studying Laurent, who didn’t flinch below her gaze, and managed to even look bored by her attention.  
   
“I certainly wasn’t expecting you to look so much like me”, was all Laurent replied.  
   
Jokaste smiled and shrugged. “He has a type”.  
   
“I can tell”.  
   
Kastor cleared his throat. “What did you come back for, Damianos?”  
   
“Is it mine?”, he asked, addressing the question to Jokaste specifically.  
   
“Who?”  
   
“Jokaste…”  
   
“What difference does it make?”, she replied defiantly.  
   
“I think I deserve to know”, he said angrily, feeling the control he’d struggled so much to gain abandoning him all of the sudden, “if I’m fathering the child of the woman who’s fucking _my brother_ ”.  
   
She raised her eyebrows, completely unaffected by Damen’s outburst.  
   
“Well?”, he asked, exasperatedly.  
   
“What if it was yours?”  
   
“I-, I… I don’t fucking _know,_ Jokaste, I will figure it out but let. Me. Know”, he said firmly.  
   
“Such a flare for the dramatic, Damianos”, she said, waving a hand dismissively, “you never change”.  
   
Damen shook his head and sat down on the couch.  
   
“How have you been?”, she asked him, the only sign she gave a damn about Damen at all.  
   
“How have _I_ been? Great! I found that my girlfriend and my brother were fucking and everything has been uphill ever since”, he said sarcastically.  
   
“It _has_ been seven months, Damianos”, she said, sitting in front of him. “Maybe it’s time to let it go”.  
   
He stared at her. “What if I don’t want to?”  
   
“I think you’re already starting to”, she replied, turning to stare at Laurent.  
   
“Is it mine?”, he insisted.  
   
“No”.  
   
Relief invaded him. He covered his head with his hands and looked down, feeling drained from this conversation, from her, from them. He felt Laurent pressing against him, just a small presence making itself known, with the effect of a lightning strike. He turned to look at Laurent, who simply nodded encouragingly, silently telling him to _carry on._  
   
“I want to sell our parent’s house”, Damen said, this time aimed at Kastor.  
   
Kastor was taken aback by it. He was so readable. “You…what?”, Kastor asked, confusion written on his face.  
   
Damen sighed. He didn’t feel like having this conversation at all, but like Jokaste had said, maybe it was time to let go.  
   
He cleared his throat. “I want to sell our parent’s house, but I need your approval to do so”.  
   
Kastor eyed him warily. “…Carry on”.  
   
“It just doesn’t feel like a home anymore. It’s just an eternal reminder of what we’ve lost. You chose to leave, and now I think it’s my time to leave too. I can’t just keep living in the past forever, in a place I don’t feel I belong to, where all the memories just haunt me like ghosts. It’s such a waste to keep occupying a space I’m not happy in, and I think it is not what our parents would have liked. They wouldn’t have liked to know that our house now feels like a prison”.  
   
Kastor sat unmoving. A second later, he spoke again. “Lovely speech, but I couldn’t care less about it. What do I get if I agree?”  
   
Damen wanted to _strangle_ him. He swallowed against the nausea and the rage rising inside him and carried on. “We split it evenly. I need to pay for college, and I think it’s fair to assume you’re going to need financial help from now on”.  
   
“I don’t want to get my hands dirty”.  
   
“I’ll be the one in charge of finding a seller”.  
   
“And how can I trust you? How can I be certain that you won’t just take the money and run away with your little bitch?”  
   
“Because I’m not you”.  
   
Jokaste snorted at that, he could feel Laurent looking at him in surprise.  
   
Kastor raised an eyebrow. Damen didn’t quell below his gaze.  
   
“Fine”, was all Kastor said.  
   
Damen smiled. “Good”, he replied, “Do you want to go back and take anything or…?”  
   
“No. I’m not coming back to that place anymore. Take whatever you want, I don’t care”.  
   
“Alright. I’ll contact you as soon as someone shows up”.  
   
“Fine”.  
   
Damen stood up immediately, not wanting to spend another minute in that place. Jokaste, in the meantime, kept rubbing her belly, the intent behind it clear enough, wanting to unsettle Damen, and he had to admit, she was managing to. She always knew how to play her cards.  
   
“Congratulations to you both. You don’t deserve it, but I truly hope you’re happy together”, he said, and it hurt to say it, but it didn’t make it less true. He loved them both, and regardless of how badly they’d fucked up, he wanted nothing but happiness in their lives. He supposed that now Kastor could dream of the possibility of having another family.  
   
They’d lost their own long time ago.  
   
Laurent walked next to him through the door. When he was about to leave, he heard Jokaste behind him. “I know what you think”, she started, “but it’s not like that. I think… I think we could be happy, with time”.  
   
Damen turned to look at her. She was still so beautiful, but he couldn’t quite tell if she was telling the truth or not, he could never tell with her. “I truly hope you’ll be”.  
   
“Same to you”, she turned to Laurent, “take care of him”.  
   
Laurent snorted. “Better than you, for certain”.  
   
Jokaste didn’t reply to that, she simply walked towards Damen and pressed a kiss against his cheek. “Goodbye, Damen”, she whispered.  
   
Damen was expecting the sting.  
   
He’d thought about it for a very long time, he’d thought about the terrible, nagging, pulsing ache of her kiss, one last kiss. He’d thought about facing her, about looking at her once again and feeling every single memory invading him and swallowing him whole with the force of a tsunami. He knew he’d never be ready for it, never could prepare himself enough, could not train himself to avoid the pain.  
   
So he was shocked when it never came.  
   
It didn’t.  
   
That was when he realized he didn’t love her anymore. Not how he’d thought he still did.  
   
His eyes fixed on Laurent instead.  
   
And the force of the wave crashed against him.  
   
He wanted to drown in the blue of Laurent’s eyes.  
   
“Take care”, was all he said as he turned his back to Jokaste and took Laurent’s hand, feeling suddenly bold. Laurent didn’t recoil, he allowed himself to be led, there to give support without asking for anything in return.  
   
Damen didn’t even realize when they were back in their car. The brain has a certain ability to expand through the limits of time and space, and so, he was so lost in thought that the touch of Laurent’s hand, the walk through the doors and the building, the pounding of his heart, they were just secondary assets hidden beneath the turmoil in Damen’s head. He needed to _think,_ so badly, so desperately. He didn’t know how. His thoughts were scattered, tangled, messed, mixed, mingled. He couldn’t find a beginning nor an end, it was an endless spiral extending infinitely. He didn’t understand.  
   
A thumb rubbing the back of his hand.  
   
Cutting like a knife through every single one of his walls, through every single tangle in his brain.  
   
“Damen”, a whisper, soft, low, strong enough to rush through his thoughts.  
   
“Damen”, insistent, strong, sharp, weak, perfect.  
   
He blinked.  
   
Laurent’s eyes were fixed on him. Blue. Blue. Blue. _Blue._  
  
“Laurent”, was all Damen could say.  
   
“Are you okay?”  
   
Damen shook his head. Words failed him. They couldn’t find a path, a way through the tangle.  
   
Laurent leaned against the backseat with a sigh. He didn’t say anything, he just stared straight ahead, his thumb not leaving Damen’s hand, still rubbing soothing circles against it.  
   
 _Think._  
  
Through Jokaste and Kastor and his _nephew,_ and through the pain and the rejection and the hurt and the betrayal, he forced his thoughts to find a way through, focusing on that single touch of his thumb. An anchor. A compass. A fixed point. A vortex.  
   
He looked at Laurent.  
   
He forced himself to talk. “Thank you for doing this”, he said, slightly louder than a whisper.  
   
Laurent nodded. “What now?”, he asked.  
   
Damen knew what he meant, but he didn’t feel like answering. He simply shrugged and said, “get me _away_ from here, _now_ ”.  
   
He needed to breathe and he needed to get away from that place immediately. He needed to leave all his ghosts behind. He needed to move on. He needed Laurent brushing his thumb against the back of his hand for the rest of his life.  
   
“Where to?”  
   
Damen shook his head, “anywhere, I don’t care, just take me far from here”.  
   
Laurent nodded and started the car.  
   
He spent the whole ride with his head leaned against the window. He forced his eyes to close and focus on anything but the thought of them. He thought and at the same time he didn’t, not one bit, not at all.  
   
Laurent kept on driving, and Damen could tell it was taking them longer than normal to get to school, but he didn’t ask.  
   
When they finally stopped, Laurent turned to look at him expectantly. Damen opened his eyes, realizing they had arrived somewhere, elsewhere.  
   
He looked around.  
   
There was nothing but sand and sea in front of them.  
   
“The beach”, he whispered, stating the obvious.  
   
Laurent didn’t reply with a biting remark. He simply nodded. “I like coming here to think”.  
   
“Why?”  
   
“Because nothing can go wrong when you have the sea in front of you”.  
   
“I can think of a thousand scenarios in which things can go wrong when you have the sea in front of you”, Damen replied, “but that’s not what I meant”.  
   
“What”, Laurent asked, “did you mean, then?”  
   
“I meant, why did you take me to a place that is so personal to you?”  
   
“Because you need to think. And nothing can go wrong when you have the sea in front of you”, Laurent replied, stubbornly.  
   
Damen smiled weakly and opened the door to the car.  
   
It was freezing.  
   
“Oh fuck, it’s cold”, Damen couldn’t help but say.  
   
“That will help, too”, Laurent replied, “it might freeze your brain and you’ll stop thinking altogether”, he said, opening his door and getting out, seemingly unaffected by the cold, the god of cold and wind and life and death right in front of Damen.  
   
Damen walked towards the beach and sat in the sand, almost throwing himself, feeling exhausted all of the sudden. He slumped with a long-suffering sigh, feeling all the remaining energy leaving him.  
   
Laurent was a couple of steps behind him, not meaning to intrude.  
   
Damen turned to look at him. The wind was moving his hair wildly and he was standing still, his eyes fixed on the sunset. “Come here”, Damen told him.  
   
Laurent looked at him.  
   
Damen nodded encouragingly. “Come”, he repeated, “please”.  
   
Laurent acquiesced and walked slowly towards him. The way the wind played with his hair and his clothes took an almost mystical aura with the soft yellow emanating from the sunset right in front of them. The white of his skin shone brightly, as if it was taking life on its own, as if it was absorbing the whole light coming from the sun, and he turned into a sunbeam by his own force.  
   
Laurent slumped next to him.  
   
“I used to come here and build sand castles with Kastor and my parents”, Damen couldn’t help but say.  
   
Laurent looked at him. “Yes”, he agreed, “you did tell me once”.  
   
“It is one of my fondest memories”, was all he said.  
   
“I figured”, a small moment of silence. “That’s how you should remember them, how you should remember _him_ ”, was all Laurent said.  
   
And there, he’d said it all. Damen didn’t need anything else. He allowed the sound of the waves to carry him there, to a sunny afternoon during the summer, to Kastor with a big smile on his face, to his father creating the blueprint of the castle, to his mother looking at them lovingly, to himself filling the buckets with sand.  
   
That was how he wanted to remember them. Laurent was right.  
   
That image took over and Damen felt what he hadn’t felt in a long time: he felt _peace._  
  
He opened his eyes and turned to look at Laurent, who was staring at him fixedly, carefully, a bit shyly, as if he was uncertain if he should have said that at all in the first place. That was a whole new facet of Laurent, that shyness, that uncertainty, that look as if he was threading on thin ice, and Damen could tell how much he hated it, and he couldn’t help but love knowing _that._  
   
God, Damen was _so in love_ with him, so much than he couldn’t even put into words. It was a sort of feeling far beyond substance, cornering over essence, making itself known, expanding itself and fulfilling his whole body, in a way that he couldn’t do anything but allow itself to be felt, as it demanded. There was nothing else for him to do. It was a near impossibility, but as he felt so acutely alive right next to Laurent, he knew there was no turning back. He could not just pretend like nothing was happening, like the force of the essence of his feelings for him wasn’t tearing him apart and finding his way through. He just allowed himself to feel, freely, strongly, terribly, wonderfully.  
   
He moved an inch closer. Just one inch.  
   
Laurent’s hair was covering his eyes, moving wildly around. Damen smiled softly and tucked a couple of strands behind his ear, softly. Laurent simply stared at him.  
   
And Damen did the same thing he’d done that first night of the new year which now seemed too distant.  
   
He moved his hand and softly caressed his cheekbone, and he left it there, his eyes focused on that deep, cold blue, and the contrast of his warm, sun-tainted skin.  
   
And Laurent did something he’d never done before.  
   
He moved his face, just a little bit, just enough for his lips to find Damen’s palm. It was soft, fast, hesitant.  
   
Damen blinked.  
   
Had Laurent done that before?  
   
The image was achingly familiar, in a way that he hadn’t expected. He felt an impulse he couldn’t describe to take his own hand and kiss the same spot where Laurent’s lips had been a second before, before he lost the warmth and the scent and the tingle of his touch.  
   
And he _remembered._  
  
Like a series of scenes forming a sequence, he _remembered_ the familiarity of that touch. He remembered a soft smile, a small whisper, a hesitant kiss.  
   
Laurent had done this before.  
   
Damen’s eyes widened.  
   
Laurent’s did too, in realization. He knew that Damen knew. He knew he’d remembered. He looked terrified, like he was one second away from fleeing.  
   
So in less than a second, Damen did the only thing he could do. He took Laurent’s wrist.  
   
And he felt his pulse jumping, accelerating, unstoppable beneath his touch.  
   
The signs were clear.  
   
Damen inched closer, just a little bit.  
   
Closer.  
   
Closer.  
   
Laurent didn’t run away. Laurent held himself tight and still, desperately still. Strained, strong, beautiful, warmth against cold, light against dark, life against death.  
   
Laurent closed his eyes just in time. So did Damen.  
   
And Damen allowed himself to _feel._ Through the explosion of sensations and the erratic beating of his own heart, through his nerves and his anxiety.  
   
Whenever he kissed someone, his brain was on overdrive, he couldn’t stop thinking, a thousand thoughts scattered everywhere, trying to find some sense against someone else’s lips.  
   
But this kiss broke through every single fortress, through the tangle and the mess and the pain and the betrayal.  
   
It was small, hesitant, short, barely a suggestion of itself.  
   
But strong enough to break through the walls.  
   
A small sigh, a huff of shared breath. He was breathing Laurent’s air, he was lost, he needed the touch of his lips again, and he allowed himself to kiss him once again.  
   
Laurent’s lips met him in earnest, in a way they hadn’t before.  
   
Damen touched his hair, pulling it back so softly, and he felt Laurent’s sigh against his lip. And he smiled, because this…this was something he hadn’t even permitted himself to imagine, couldn’t think, couldn’t conceive.  
   
He was kissing Laurent deVere.  
   
His fiercest enemy, the person he’d once hated vehemently.  
   
The most extraordinary human being he’d ever met.  
   
And with the sunset casting its glow on their faces as they got lost in each other’s touch, Damen felt very much _alive._


	23. Chapter 23

_“Look at that”, Damen said as he pointed at the sky._  
  
 _“Where?”_  
  
 _“There!”_  
  
 _“What?”_  
  
 _“Can’t you see?”_  
  
 _“What am I supposed to see?”_  
  
 _“Really? That looooong white line that keeps dragging on”, he said as he pointed excitedly._  
  
 _“Oh, that?”, Theomedes replied with a small smile on his face._  
  
 _“Yes. It’s pretty!”_  
  
 _“It is”, he agreed._  
  
 _“What is at the end of it? The one that keeps drawing it?”_  
  
 _“An airplane”, his father replied simply._  
  
 _Damen smiled widely. “Looks like a magic wand”._  
  
 _“Yes, well, it’s a long plane”, Theomedes replied, smiling softly._  
  
 _A second later, Kastor walked in carrying a couple of buckets filled with water. “What should I do with these, dad?”, he asked._  
  
 _“Okay, gather up gang”, he said with a clap, “here’s what we’ll do. We’ll create a water canal for our castle, so we can protect it from the thieves and burglars. Whoever wants to get to our castle will have to fight against the sharks and piranhas”._  
  
 _Kastor and Damen stared at each other and nodded excitedly._  
  
 _“You’ll fill the buckets with sand, Damen, and Kastor, you’ll create the base of the castle”._  
  
 _Damen grabbed the other buckets and started filling them with sand._  
  
 _“Wait, wait”, they heard a voice from afar. “Look at me!”, his mother exclaimed, they all did. “Smile!”_  
  
 _Damen did. The biggest and widest smile he could produce, he felt every part of his body very much alive and tingling with excitement._  
  
 _Somewhere, beyond the blueprints and the buckets, beyond the fortress and shielding himself from the outer world not by a canal but by a rock, a little prince with piercing blue eyes stared fixedly, his legs against his chest. Auguste had tried to convince him to walk into the sea, but he wouldn’t do it. And so, with his brother just a couple of steps away, he watched silently as a boy whose dark skin seemed to glow below the sun built a giant castle, a smile drawn on his face._  
   
******  
   
It was getting colder, but Damen couldn’t care less.  
   
He’d just kissed Laurent deVere.  
   
And the feeling was absolutely hypnotizing and unstoppable. Addictive, he might even call it.  
   
He opened his eyes when they broke apart and he managed to catch a small glimpse of Laurent’s face, his cheeks blushed, his eyes still closed. Damen smiled and bit his lip, he couldn’t not to.  
   
A second later, Laurent’s eyes opened, blue, so very blue, deeply fixed on him, no emotion behind them, not really.  
   
But Damen could tell, by every single part of his face but his eyes.  
   
His cheeks slightly blushed, his mouth slightly reddened, his breathing ragged.  
   
But his shoulders tense, his back straightened, his brows frowning.  
   
He was uncertain.  
   
So Damen could do nothing but reassure him, and he kissed him again. A small, quick peck on his mouth.  
   
Laurent simply stared at him, speechless.  
   
Damen didn’t force him to talk. He simply stood up and walked a couple of steps towards the ocean, standing two feet away from the waves and fixing his eyes on the movement of the water, giving him just a couple of minutes to gather his thoughts together.  
   
He allowed his mind to become one with the sound of the waves. So deeply was he stuck in his thoughts that he didn’t even realize Laurent had walked next to him.  
   
A second later, he felt water hitting him on the face. He opened his eyes. Laurent was staring at him mischievously, a smile drawing on his face. “Whoops, my bad”, he replied.  
   
Damen shook his head and walked closer to the water, he quickly grabbed a handful of water and threw it back at Laurent, who tried to cover himself with his hands. Damen took more water and threw it at him again, and Laurent took off running away from him, Damen immediately chasing after him.  
   
When he reached him and grabbed him by the waist, Laurent turned and stared at him. “I did not think this through”, he admitted lowly, droplets of water dripping from his hair.  
   
Damen was breathing in a rush. He could clearly see the blue of Laurent’s eyes, a small glimmer as they lit up below the moonlight. “Hi”, he said.  
   
Laurent didn’t smile, he couldn’t help but fix his eyes on Damen’s lips. “Hi”, he replied.  
   
Damen kissed him again.  
   
When they parted, Laurent looked down, “idiot”, he whispered.  
   
Laurent sat over the sand. Damen followed him.  
   
“Hey”, Damen asked hesitantly.  
   
“Hm?”, Laurent replied, his eyes fixed on the ocean.  
   
“Penny for your thoughts?”  
   
“No”.  
   
“Come on”.  
   
Laurent took a deep breath after a silent moment. “I-”, he started, “I… erm, that was…adequate”.  
   
Damen felt all the uncertainty melting away. “Adequate?”  
   
“It’s been a long time since I-”, he cleared his throat, “since…well…”  
   
Damen turned to look at him. “I really like you Laurent”, he looked down and smiled, “and I’ve fought against it for _so long_ ”, he shook his head, “I tried to hate you. I swear I tried”.  
   
Laurent smiled back. “I do hate you, though”.  
   
“I figured”.  
   
They just sat side by side, their shoulders brushing, both of them staring at the ocean silently.  
   
“Laurent?”, Damen asked hesitantly.  
   
“What”.  
   
“I’m freezing”, he replied.  
   
Laurent smiled, his hair still wet but looking absolutely regal and invincible sitting there. “What a shame, I’d like to stay here for another hour or two”.  
   
Damen groaned. “Your lips are blue!”  
   
“They’re always blue”.  
   
“Maybe I could kiss the cold away…”  
   
Laurent stood up. “Let’s go. I won’t stand to hear you talking like this for another hour, it’s exhausting”.  
   
Damen smiled triumphantly.  
   
*****  
   
They didn’t say a word to each other on the way back, but Damen couldn’t stop smiling. He kept his head fixed to the window, trying to hide the expression from Laurent, because it was kind of embarrassing, showing openly how much he wanted it. He bit his lip and tried to think. It had been a long time, but he was certain of where it had started: lost with Laurent in the middle of the forest as he told every single story without even being aware he was telling it. It was the way his eyes had shone as he stared at the cypresses, the soft touch, the gentle way in which he moved around them, as if they were precious objects to take care of.  
   
“Stop that”, his voice cut through every single thought. He had that ability.  
   
“Stop what?”  
   
“Stop smiling”.  
   
“You’re driving, aren’t your eyes supposed to be fixed on the road?”, Damen asked, “or am I distracting you too much?”  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes. “I don’t like this version of you”.  
   
“Which version of me do you _actually_ like?”, Damen joked.  
   
“Good point”.  
   
As soon as they got to the school, Damen jumped out of the car. This was…different, and terrifying in a sort of way, because he didn’t know what was expecting them, he didn’t know what would happen then. So he did the only thing he could think of, he walked Laurent to their room and excused himself, and ran.  
   
********  
   
“Dude! What the fuck?”, Nik said as he opened the door. “You almost broke my door with your fist”.  
   
“Is Jord here?”, Damen asked.  
   
“No”, he replied, disappointed.  
   
Damen pushed past the door and walked in, he then turned to Nik. A silent pause. A hesitant look in his eyes. A questioning look in Nik’s.  
   
“I kissed him”.  
   
Nik’s eyes widened. “WHAT?”  
   
Damen smiled widely. “I kissed him, Nik, we kissed!”  
   
“You kissed _Laurent?_ ”, Nik asked in disbelief.  
   
Damen nodded. “It was… It was perfect. I, god Nik I’m such a mess right now I can’t even think”.  
   
“Okay, now, how on Earth did that happen?”, Nik looked quite confused.  
   
He sat in Nik’s bed. Feeling tired all of the sudden, because then he _remembered._ He swallowed, squeezing his eyes. “I-”, he cleared his throat, “I saw Jokaste today”.  
   
Nik’s eyebrows almost reached the sky. “You _saw_ Jokaste?”, Damen nodded, “and may I ask how?”  
   
“I looked for her”.  
   
“…I’m not following”.  
   
“I went to their house to ask Kastor if I could sell our parent’s house”.  
   
Nik sat next to him. “Sell your parent’s house?”  
   
“She’s pregnant”, he blurted out, he couldn’t not to, the rush of adrenaline the touch of Laurent’s lips had imprinted on him were mixed with the dread he had learnt to associate with her and what they lived.  
   
Nik stared silently into the distance. Damen looked at him biting his lip, giving him time to process it. He realized the second he did, because his expressions were as open as Damen’s, but when he turned to him, he punched him in the arm, hard.  
   
“Ow!”, Damen said, rubbing his arm. “What the hell was that for?”  
   
“You went with Laurent?”, Nik asked, looking offended. “Fuck you!”.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. “Nik…”  
   
“Asshole”, Nik said, turning his back to him and crossing his arms.  
   
“You’re angry I didn’t take you?”  
   
“Great guess Sherlock!”, Nik said, standing up, “sure, take the little serpent with you and ignore your best friend who’s been there for you _forever._ You just broke our truce of bros before hoes, and you did it with the worst hoe”.  
   
Damen sighed. “You would have kicked my brother’s ass”.  
   
“He deserves it”.  
   
“He does, but I didn’t want that. I knew Laurent wouldn’t. He could break him with words, he’s exceedingly good at that, if the opportunity arose”.  
   
“And what do you mean she’s pregnant?”, Nik’s curiosity won him out in the end.  
   
“That she’s pregnant”, Damen replied with a shrug. Nik’s eyes widened in a terrified realization, but Damen tried to soothe him before he asked, “it’s not mine”.  
   
“Oh thank God”, Nik said. “And you kissed Laurent? What the fuck happened today? Did we suddenly walk into a parallel universe?”  
   
Damen bit his lip, “I feel like maybe I am. Maybe it’s the only possible explanation, but God I don’t want to leave this universe, then, ever”.  
   
“You’re disgusting”.  
   
“He offered comfort. Then it all sort of happened and we kissed”.  
   
“Did you piss your pants?”  
   
“Almost. I just, I swear I passed out for a second. It was amazing”.  
   
“Please spare me the details”, Nik replied with a grimace, “so what now?”  
   
Damen sighed. “I don’t know, God, Nik, I want to kiss him again, I just- I’m going to die, he’s going to kill me”.  
   
“What if he’s doing it to get back at you?”  
   
“That nagging thought has been in my mind all day, but-” _but he accompanied me to face my brother he said he didn’t have any other choice when I asked him to stay with me_  
 _but he took me to the beach because he remembered what I’d told him_  
 _but he stared at me and I felt that through the thousand different shades of blue I could witness something else, as if I could catch a glimpse into his very own soul_  
 _but he kissed me back and his breathing was ragged and he looked so perfect and yet so completely confused because of the turmoil in his head_  
 _but I feel this is genuine, I just feel it._  
   
He shrugged, “I don’t know, something tells me he isn’t”.  
   
“He better not”, Nik said angrily, “or I’ll kick his ass”.  
   
Damen went on to explain to him what had happened with Kastor and Jokaste and what they’d talked about. He told Nik about the beach and about the cold weather, the glimmer in his eyes and that invisible magnet which pulled one to the other as if meant to be, as if the world was aligning itself in that very own moment.  
   
“I want to be with him”, was the last thing he told Nik.  
   
Nik smiled. “Something tells me the miracle might actually come true this time, you lucky bastard”.  
   
Damen smiled widely.  
   
“Now, are you going to keep leaving your boyfriend waiting or…?”  
   
“He’s not my boyfriend!”, Damen said walking towards the door, “And I’m sorry, I should have told you about Kastor but-”  
   
“I know. I don’t forgive you, but I understand”.  
   
“I love you”.  
   
“I know”.  
   
He came back running to the room to find Laurent silently and calmly reading a book. He looked up and then fixed his eyes on the book again. Damen looked around awkwardly, but Laurent broke the silence then. “You told Nikandros, didn’t you?”  
   
Damen hissed. “…Maybe…”  
   
Laurent kept reading calmly. “Any threat I should be aware of?”  
   
“He will kick your ass if you break my heart”, Damen replied simply, “his words, not mine”.  
   
“Great”, Laurent said, putting down the book. “What”, he started, “did you reply to him?”  
   
“That I trust you won’t”.  
   
“Really?”, Laurent asked in disbelief.  
   
“Really”, he said with certainty.  
   
Laurent looked everywhere but at Damen, as if he was trying to disguise the fact he was surprised at what Damen had just said. Damen smiled. “I…”, he cleared his throat, “the same goes for you”.  
   
Laurent frowned. “What do you mean?”  
   
“I won’t hurt you”.  
   
“I-”, Laurent scratched the back of his head. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep”.  
   
“I can. I won’t hurt you”.  
   
“Experience has proven me that people don’t keep their promises”, Laurent said, in a tone of voice Damen hadn’t heard before, “Auguste promised me he’d be with me forever”.  
   
Damen sat next to him on the bed without arguing, because he knew deep down that Laurent had a point. “I just want you to be happy. Tell me what would make you happy”.  
   
“To be able to hate you, maybe? To be able to ignore you, to not give a shit about you?, that would make me happy”.  
   
“What if I kissed you again?”  
   
“I would hate that”.  
   
“No, I don’t think you would”.  
   
“I don’t think I would”.  
   
Damen closed the last inches between them and kissed him softly. Unbidden, and unexpectedly, a thought filled his mind: that night at the tent, the leaves playing against the wind, moving softly, Laurent’s voice next to him, insistent, teasing, with a certain softness Damen had never seen before, and the same smile on his face drew on his lips as he kissed him. There was a certain wonder in kissing Laurent, for it was a contradiction of all he’d known of Laurent until not long ago: the ice blue aura surrounding him took a hint of warmth, as if it had the ability to turn yellow, as if the season of Boreas had given way for beautiful Spring. Kissing Laurent was like April and May, when the air was still cold, but the warm air and the flowers coming back to life and painting the land with a thousand different colors reminded you that you were very much alive. Kissing Laurent was a journey within itself, a spectrum of emotions: from hesitance, to softness, to that moment when his walls seemed to collapse for flowers to be reborn.  
   
This time, it was Laurent who took a step forward. A second later, Damen felt his tongue caressing his lips, silently asking a question. Damen opened his mouth. And Spring came. Full and radiant and colorful and perfect. He wanted to melt in that feeling. He wanted to get lost in the warmth.  
   
They broke apart because it felt like the right thing to do. Laurent looked down whenever they stopped kissing, Damen noticed, as if his stare was too revealing. Damen smiled and allowed himself to show openly every single expression that was written on his face. When Laurent seemed to be able to gather all of his feelings he looked up and fixed his eyes on Damen, he couldn’t help the small smile which drew on his face when he saw Damen smiling like that. Laurent tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and simply stared back at Damen.  
   
“I should go to sleep”, Laurent said in a whisper.  
   
Damen nodded. “Yes, so should I”.  
   
Laurent stood up and walked towards the room. Damen felt adrenaline hitting him like a wave, all over again: the rush of excitement, the happiness which seemed infinite, and yet, once the tide calmed down again, he was able to feel for a couple of seconds, the terrible exhaustion which was threatening to drown him. He put on his pjs and laid on his own bed, trying to make as clear as possible that he wanted nothing more than to give Laurent his own space.  
   
Laurent came out of the room and immediately laid on his bed. When Damen came back from the bathroom, Laurent was awkwardly silent, as he turned off the light.  
   
“Laurent”, Damen said into the silence.  
   
“Hm?”, he replied.  
   
He had to ask it. “Do you regret it?”  
   
“What?”  
   
“This”.  
   
“You will have to be more specific”.  
   
“Do you regret kissing your worst enemy?”  
   
“I would. But I’ve never kissed my worst enemy”.  
   
“Who am I, then?”  
   
“My obnoxious roommate”.  
   
“Do you regret kissing your obnoxious roommate?”  
   
“That depends”.  
   
“On what?”  
   
“On whether my obnoxious roommate did it to get back at his ex-girlfriend who he had seen minutes ago for the first time in seven months and who happened to be bearing his brother’s child or not”.  
   
Damen was speechless.  
   
He blinked.  
   
“What?”  
   
“So, should I regret it or not?”, Laurent asked coldly.  
   
Damen stood up and walked towards Laurent’s bed, kneeling in front of him. Laurent kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, determinedly not giving anything away.  
   
“Laurent”, Damen started, “look at me”.  
   
Laurent didn’t.  
   
“Laurent”, Damen insisted.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes and looked at him. “What?”  
   
Damen dragged a deep breath. “I would never do that to you”.  
   
“I have given you enough motives to do it”.  
   
“That’s not the way I am, and you know it”.  
   
“Do I?”  
   
Damen had to say it. He just had to. He knew it. “I’ve liked you from the moment you stood defiantly in front of everyone at that first biology class. I wanted to hate you so badly, but the more I knew you, the more I wanted to be with you”, he said, staring deeply into Laurent’s eyes, which were unmoving. “Jokaste broke my heart”, he started, “but after I met you I realized that I cared less and less about _her_ because she wasn’t _you_ ”.  
   
“We are very similar”.  
   
“And very different. You are the truest man I’ve ever known”.  
   
“How can you believe that?”  
   
“Because I see it”, he said, pointing at Laurent’s eyes, “right there”.  
   
“Stop saying those things”.  
   
“I won’t”.  
   
“Just… I don’t have the means to defend against this”.  
   
“Then don’t”.  
   
Laurent nodded. “Goodnight, Damen”.  
   
Damen leaned in and placed a soft kiss on his lips, a kiss which was meant to reassure Laurent, to be certain that he wouldn’t regret this. “Goodnight, Laurent”, and before he stood up, “thank you”.  
   
“What for?”  
   
“For saving me today. And so many days before today”.  
   
Laurent stared at him silently, as if he couldn’t quite understand what Damen was saying.  
   
“You have, Laurent. You saved me from myself”.  
   
Laurent didn’t reply, but Damen didn’t need him to.  
   
Just as he was falling asleep, surrounded by warmth and tranquility, he heard a small whisper, but loud enough for him to hear, “so did you”, Laurent said softly.


	24. Chapter 24

The next day, Damen woke up to an empty bedroom. He sat up in a rush and looked around, still feeling the foggy effects of sleep addling his mind, unable to distinguish between fiction and reality. All he truly wanted as he sat up was to stare into Laurent’s eyes and be certain when he looked at them of what had happened, certain that it hadn’t been just a dream, a creation of his mind, something he forced himself to believe to make everything that happened with Jokaste and Kastor more bearable.  
   
…Jokaste and Kastor.  
   
He could delve into that later.  
   
At the moment he had more pressing matters to attend. And a biology class he was already running late to.  
   
He cursed internally and ran to the shower.  
   
He arrived to class just in time and as he walked in, his eyes searched desperately for Laurent, who was sitting on a corner of the room, scribbling on his notebook quickly, doing everything in his might to avert Damen’s eyes.  
   
Damen would have none of that. He walked towards him decidedly and crouched next to his seat. “Laurent”, he started.  
   
“Yes?”, Laurent asked, looking calm.  
   
“We need to talk”.  
   
“What about?”  
   
Damen sighed in frustration. “What the hell? Are you seriously-”  
   
“Mr. DeAkielos”, Guion’s voice resonated through the whole room.  
   
Damen looked down. “This isn’t over”, he told Laurent before standing up and quickly grabbing a chair.  
   
The whole class went by in a blur. It felt as if his brain wasn’t quite out of that turmoil between dream and reality. Everything seemed secondary, as blurry and hazy as his own brain was acting at the moment. He couldn’t help but wonder if everything had been a mistake, a reality he’d placed himself into, an excuse to have something to fix his attention on.  
   
But no, he couldn’t have imagined that.  
   
Because Laurent surpassed all of his expectations. Because anything his mind could conjure wouldn’t come even close to what the real experience of kissing Laurent DeVere was like. Because touching his hair and feeling the soft way in which he panted and the way his cheeks blushed and his pupils seemed to expand infinitesimally and the way in which he bit his lip afterwards and his soft ivory skin…he couldn’t have imagined that.  
   
As soon as the bell rang, Damen was brought back to the present to find the classroom empty. He blinked and stood up with a haze. Laurent was gone. And try as he might he felt as if he was trapped inside a dream he could not escape from, as if he was chasing Laurent amidst different stages of sleep, amidst different realities, amidst different universes, as if their minds were set on parallel settings.  
   
He attended his lessons merely as an entity, as a _phasma,_ somewhere in between here and there. By the time his classes were done, he ran towards their room, hoping to find a sign, something, anything.  
   
Nothing.  
   
Laurent wasn’t there. Nor was there anything to pull him out of his haze, no sign, no hint at reality.  
   
He sighed and sat on his bed. Perhaps the signs were clear. Perhaps Laurent had chosen to speak with his actions rather than with his words, as he’d done so many times before.  
   
But Damen, as he’d done so many times before, chose not to listen.  
   
Or instead, he chose to listen closely. To pay attention to what he truly was saying with his actions.  
   
And maybe, just maybe, this time he’d listened correctly.  
   
He stood up decidedly and walked to the one place where he knew he’d find him. He ran to the library, and there was Laurent, not trying to hide, not really, not even attempting to. He wasn’t running. He just needed to think.  
   
He was sitting with Nicaise, helping him with his homework. Damen only could look at him. It was like those moments in the movies when the rest of the screen would fade to black while that one spot remained bright and shiny. Nicaise smiled as soon as he noticed Damen was coming towards them. “You’re blocking the light”, he told Damen when he arrived.  
   
Laurent looked up at him and simply stared.   
   
“Hey, kid”.  
   
“Hey fattie”, Nicaise replied.  
   
“I’m not fat”, Damen said defensively, then he turned to look at that fixing point amidst dream and reality, cold and warmth, life and death. He stared at Laurent. “Can we talk?”  
   
“About what?”, Nicaise asked.  
   
Damen rolled his eyes. “…About a Biology project we’re supposed to be working on”.  
   
“Another one?”  
   
“Yeah. We have to erm… analyze three samples of cypress trees and their… features to survive under…the cold”.  
   
Laurent was already standing up. “I’m literally begging you to stop”, he said, already on his way out of the library.  
   
Nicaise frowned and eyed them warily but didn’t ask any other questions, simply looking as Damen and Laurent walked away.  
   
The determination Damen had felt up until that point crumbled when Laurent stood up in front of him, expectantly. “…Hi”, was all he could say to Laurent, in a very quiet voice, “I didn’t get to say it this morning”.  
   
Laurent cleared his throat. “Yes, I had some business to attend to regarding that lecture and-”  
   
“Laurent, now I’m the one who’s begging you to stop”.  
   
Laurent grew silent.  
   
“I know what is going on”.  
   
“Oh, please, enlighten me”, Laurent replied defensively.  
   
“You’re terrified”, Damen blurted.  
   
Laurent rose an eyebrow. “Am I now?”  
   
“And I’m terrified too! I just, this is brand new for me, this…”  
   
“Oh, _please,_ you have fucked half of the school by now and you pretend to be terrified?”  
   
Damen groaned in frustration, “I _haven’t…_ you know what? It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you a truth, then: I’ve-”, he hesitated for a moment, “I’ve never felt this way for anyone before. Not like this”.  
   
Laurent fixed his eyes on another corner of the hallway, avoiding Damen’s gaze with all his might.  
   
“I mean it”, he whispered.  
   
Laurent remained silent.  
   
“Laurent”, Damen said.  
   
No response.  
   
“Laurent, talk to me”.  
   
“I… I’ve never _done_ this, I-”  
   
Damen frowned.  
   
“I need time, alright?”, Laurent blurted out. “I just need some fucking time and space so I can make sense of everything and-”  
   
Damen sighed and looked down. “I, yes, I understand. I’ll give you all the space you need. And if you don’t want this, nothing will change between us, I need you to know that. Please tell me you know that”.  
   
“So we’ll keep being mortal enemies, then?”  
   
Damen’s smile was bittersweet, burdened with memories and expectations and desires, “if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get”.  
   
“I’ll see you later”, Laurent said, walking away.  
   
Damen was left to stare at an empty hallway, suddenly feeling like shit. He didn’t go to their room immediately, choosing to hang out with Nik, Pallas and Erasmus, instead. He didn’t feel like telling them anything, and Nik recognized his expression immediately, muttering “…shit”, before leading the conversation on a completely unrelated topic, and Damen loved him even more for that. Pallas and Erasmus didn’t even notice.  
   
After dinner, he was having a coffee with Nik at the school café and he was about to explain to his best friend what had happened when Jord walked in, positively looking like shit.  
   
Nik couldn’t look anywhere else as Jord stopped in front of the counter and asked for an espresso, double. It was 9 p.m. That could not end well.  
   
Damen frowned and turned to look at the spot Nik’s gaze was fixed on. Jord payed and turned in time to find two sets of eyes staring at him questioningly. Damen turned to Nik, signaling that it was his moment to start speaking. No words came out of his mouth. Damen rolled his eyes and took the lead himself. “Jord, are you okay?”, he softly asked.  
   
Jord simply stared at them and shook his head.  
   
“Do you want to sit with us?”  
   
Jord smiled politely, but it did not quite reach his eyes. He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it”, he replied quietly.  
   
“Then allow us to distract you”, Nik said, finally able to find his voice.  
   
Jord stared fixedly at Nik for a moment, considering, before walking towards them and sitting next to Nik, whose sole expression was so open it seemed as if he wanted to absorb all of Jord’s pain and take it away.  
   
Damen cleared his throat. “We were talking about-”, he considered, Laurent was certainly not on the table and he didn’t have any topic to bring up with Jord, he honestly didn’t know him at all.  
   
But Nik seemed to be starting to. “I watched yesterday the episode in which the tenth doctor leaves” he said.  
   
Jord looked up and stared at him. “You did?”, he asked in surprise.  
   
Nik nodded.  
   
“And?”  
   
“I cried for half of the episode”.  
   
“I told you you would”.  
   
“Why are they so intent on causing us pain?”, he asked.  
   
Jord nodded. “Right?”, he said, drinking from his cup, “you’ll love the next doctor though, he kind of reminds me of you every now and then”.  
   
Damen smiled and drank from his cup. He loved Doctor Who, but he felt as if he was prying on a private conversation he shouldn’t be a part of, so he simply studied them. Jord seemed crushed down, but enthusiastic enough from the conversation, a small expression of relief on his features. Nik couldn’t stop smiling, but he managed to hide it beneath the façade of talking about the tenth doctor.  
   
He could tell, however, that Jord’s expression had a name written behind, had a crushed hope, a desperate attempt, a sad goodbye.  
   
He couldn’t say how, but he was certain he and Aimeric were done.  
   
And he was infinitely glad he had someone he could go to, to divert him from those melancholic thoughts. And Nik would certainly do everything in his might to find another topic to be able to do so.  
   
******  
   
When he came back to their room, Laurent was already there, watching Netflix from his laptop. Damen had taken a couple of seconds in front of the door to steel himself before walking in, telling himself to get ready for what was about to come, although he wasn’t certain if Laurent was there or not. Laurent’s expression was unreadable as he walked in, so he simply said “hi”, to which Laurent replied “hi”.  
   
Damen threw himself over his bed, face down, feeling drained off energy, not quite prepared to face it all. He closed his eyes.  
   
Laurent was incredibly good at approaching him silently, Damen had come to realize with time, and he confirmed it when he heard a soft, hesitant, voice next to him.  
   
“Damen”.  
   
Damen buried his face deeper within the blanket. “No”, was all he said, “I don’t want to hear it. Not yet please”.  
   
“What?”, Laurent asked, “I did not understand a word you just said, the blanket muffles everything”.  
   
Damen turned his face towards him but did not open his eyes. “That I don’t want to hear you say it. You can say it tomorrow and we’ll pretend nothing happened. It’s fine. Just don’t quite say it now”.  
   
But stubborn, witty Laurent, chose to speak without saying any word.  
   
Next thing Damen felt were Laurent’s lips against him. And every single thought that came with it invading his mind.  
   
This wasn’t like the previous occasions, when a kiss managed to silence his brain, instead, it exploded in a thousand thoughts, flavors, smells, colors, a thousand words.  
   
He kissed him back hesitantly, but when he felt Laurent’s lips moving against his, he gained a bit of confidence and poured every single particle of his exploding brain within that kiss, wishing it would say it all. He felt Laurent’s touch against his cheekbone, a small touch, surprisingly tender, as if he was silently asking for permission, Damen drew closer and Laurent’s touch became firmer.  
   
They broke apart gasping for air. Damen opened his eyes to find blue eyes fixed on him.  
   
Blue, teal, turquoise, or somewhere in between the myriad of colors in his brain. He smiled and bit his lip. “Please tell me this is what you chose”.  
   
Laurent kept his eyes fixed on him. “Do you want me to say it again?”  
   
“Oh _please_ do so”.  
   
Laurent kissed him again, a small peck on his lips. Then he looked down uncertainly.  
   
Damen’s smile widened. “Let me take you tomorrow on a date”.  
   
“We can’t leave school on weekdays”.  
   
“Who said anything about leaving school?”  
   
“So you’re taking me to the most boring date ever to exist?”  
   
“With huge pleasure”.  
   
“I think I’m starting to regret this”.  
   
Damen kissed him again. “Please”, he said between kisses, “don’t”.  
   
“Fine”, Laurent replied, “but I might change my mind”.  
   
Damen stared into his eyes, before placing a kiss on the tip of his nose. “I’ve wanted to do it since I first saw your face”.  
   
“You’re a weird specimen”, Laurent replied.  
   
******  
   
The next morning, he woke up to a pillow hitting him in the face. The night before, he’d sat with Laurent and they’d finished the movie Laurent had been watching, which he hadn’t paid absolutely no attention to because his brain had positively screamed at him for two hours straight in unbridled joy. Afterwards, the day caught up to him and he quickly pecked Laurent before tucking himself into his own bed.  
   
That morning, all his eyes saw was blue.  
   
And he smiled widely to Laurent, who was crouching over him.  
   
“Ugh”, was the first thing he heard him say. “You look so smitten, it’s disgusting”.  
   
“I _am_ smitten”, Damen replied.  
   
“Really?”, Laurent asked curiously, “who for?”  
   
“The worst kind of person I could have possibly imagined”.  
   
“They must be wonderful, then”.  
   
Damen stared at him, his eyes showing everything he was feeling. “They are”, he said seriously, and he felt a small victory at seeing Laurent’s cheeks blushing and his unfruitful efforts to hide his face from Damen, who reached out and touched them gently, cupping his cheekbones, as he’d done that afternoon at the beach.  
   
“I had done this before, hadn’t I?”, he cleared his throat, “…before the beach”.  
   
Laurent was staring at him, but he quickly looked away, before nodding. “The night you won the match”.  
   
“What”, he swallowed, “what did I do that night?”  
   
“You don’t remember?”, Laurent said the obvious with a mischievous smile.  
   
“I’m pretty certain we didn’t kiss because-”, he shook his head with conviction, “I would have remembered that”.  
   
Laurent smiled. “Nothing happened”.  
   
“Something happened”.  
   
“You told me to stay with you”.  
   
“And?”  
   
“And I replied that I didn’t have any other choice”.  
   
“ _And?_ ”  
   
“And you fell asleep”.  
   
“And you didn’t kiss my hand?”  
   
Laurent looked away. “No”.  
   
“You’ve gotten bad at lying”.  
   
“I was a little bit drunk”.  
   
“…On caffeine because that’s the only thing you had that night and I know for a fact that you don’t drink _at all_ ”.  
   
Laurent cursed under his breath.  
   
“What’s that?”  
   
“Nothing”, he rolled his eyes, “fine, yes I did kiss you, but that was only because I was going to bite you to force you to take your hand away and I miscalculated”.  
   
Damen broke in laughter and shook his head. “You are impossible!”, he then stared at Laurent fixedly.  
   
“What?”, Laurent asked him curiously.  
   
Damen smiled widely. “You’re the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met”.  
   
Laurent’s blush worsened and he denied Damen his face. “Oh stop it, I already kissed you, there’s no need to – keep courting me, or whatever”.  
   
“I want to do it properly”.  
   
Laurent took a deep breath but didn’t reply.  
   
“-the way you deserve it”.  
   
“I don’t”, Laurent whispered.  
   
“You’re so very wrong”, Damen replied just as lowly. He stared deep into Laurent’s eyes and didn’t move his hand from his cheekbone, “please allow me the honor”.  
   
Laurent simply looked at him, expressionless. A heartbeat pounded in Damen’s head, then another, as he understood the meaning of having his heart on his throat, then another.  
   
Then, lowly, magnificent, perfect. “Show me”, Laurent replied slowly, “how it could be”.  
   
Damen kept the smile on his face intact, full of hope and promises for the future. He leaned in and placed a soft and small kiss on Laurent’s lips, allowing himself to revel on the velvety feeling of his skin and feeling his heart pounding louder and louder against his ears. He loved this, this moment of sharing air but drowning on it at the same time. He loved kissing Laurent deVere, for it was an act just as addictive as everything else that came from Laurent.  
   
When he leaned back, he opened his eyes to see that Laurent’s were still closed, and when they opened it was only to follow the path Damen’s head had taken, to recapture his lips and crush against them once again, an action which left Damen breathless. It was no more than a simple peck, and yet Damen wondered how Laurent managed to break and pull him back together in just a second, because that was exactly how it felt, the intensity of it far bigger than anything he’d ever felt with Jokaste or with anyone else who’d come before her.  
   
“Coffee tonight?”, Damen asked quietly, the smile unmoving.  
   
Laurent rolled his eyes but nodded as he climbed off Damen’s bed, the warmth suddenly gone.  
   
Damen’s classes couldn’t pass fast enough.


End file.
